The Power of the Unposted "Post"

This entry seems ironic, but it isn't.

There are things that should be posted, and things that shouldn't. A post about not posting things is a thing that should be posted.

The world of social media may have us believe that this concept is unnecessary, especially since it is a widespread idea that the world should be the stage for everything that one produces. From baby pictures, to complaints, to cat memes to bragging rights, the idea that we need to share with the world every minute detail of our life has taken firm hold in modern day psyche.

Not everyone though. One of my roles at work is to design and install building-wide wifi in our low income apartment complexes. I remember doing a job in Soldier's Grove, Wisconsin, population 552 and sinking. One senior man came up to me, and asked me what I was doing. When I told him, he huffed and said, "Nobody around here uses that stuff." This somewhat shocking statement made me think that in some ways they were the lucky ones.

After all, if the social media world is a stage, we are the actors tied to the roles the world wants us to see. Diversion from it means a dearth of likes, shares, et cetera. The result is a world full of people putting off their genuine natures.

I believe that we all have beliefs that are not popular or politically correct. If we do not take the time to properly express these, we are being dishonest with ourselves.

Of course, choosing one's audience is important. It does no good to incite a social feed riot over a certain issue - rather the opposite. We must strive to be wise enough to know when to express certain thoughts to close or trusted friends, or in some cases, keep it to ourselves. There is no perfect formula to this, but putting attention to it will improve matters over time.

It is, however, important to express it somewhere. It could be an email that is sent to no one or to one's self, or in a journal, or in a document in a private folder.

I have done this before, and it helps assuage the angst I am feeling about particular matters, especially ones that are unpopular. I have also shared my most private beliefs, beliefs which I'm sure would incite riots, with my wife. Even though she has not agreed with some of them, she has heard me out, perhaps pointed out flaws in my reasoning, and never loved me less because of them. When you are writing or posting or sharing to no one, or to your most trusted friends, you do not need to put on the proper filters to protect you from the lynch mobs, and it is cleansing.

A few weeks ago, a co-worker and I got on the subject of babies. He has none; I have done the baby thing twice so far. He does, however, have several nieces and nephews. At one point, he got a little quieter, and more timid and expressed to me in more roundabout language that he didn't really like the babies, or feel love for them until they were several months old. I doubt he told this to the mother on delivery day. I laughed, however, and told him that I'd heard several fathers, let alone uncles, say the same thing about their children, always in hushed tones, because it seems inappropriate.

To his point, how many people can say they love acquaintances at first sight? And babies personalities do not come out right away, and they brainwash you with their 24 hour schedule, ear splitting screams and constant defecation. Yet this newborn post got 163 likes and 33 comments, many of which calling him cute and beautiful, and so on. I love him so much more than I did on this day, but it really should be like that, shouldn't it?

Reading Deliberately

I have recently been listening to an audio book version of Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. Walden, in short, is an account of a two-year practical and philosophical experiment by the transcendentalist author. Thoreau went into the woods, built a cabin, and lived off both the land and a small garden for two years. The idea was to focus in on the very basics of life, to simplify and weed out all the unnecessary efforts, that had crept into society. He states that he really only needed to work six weeks out of the year to survive. The rest could be spent in experiencing nature and books and people and other of his interests. He calls this living deliberately.

While listening to these profound and prophetic words, I found myself disobeying his direction, while at the same time, believing the ideas stated. This hypocrisy was more practical than anything. I was listening to the book while driving for work - how I consume the vast majority of my literature these days, because that is my most lengthy, uninterrupted "dead time". But I realized that I was breezing through these chapters at a pace in which I could not properly consume and digest the ideas.

Some books should not be listened to while driving. They are too intoxicating. Ideally, one would get as cheap a paperback as possible, and read with a pencil and journal, underlining, annotating, rereading passages with the newly gained perspective, in essence "sucking the marrow" out of the binding.

Walden was probably one of the first self-help books, but it cannot help when being read like a spy or romance novel.

Reading deliberately does not just apply to a book devoted to deliberate living. Most Christian sects emphasize lifelong study of the holy scriptures, though a casual pace could get one through the Bible in under a year. But deliberate reading is even worthwhile with fiction. Take, for example, Beartown, by Fredrik Backman.

Immediately after I finished this book, I began rereading it. Only then did I catch the significance of some of the first lines, chapters, and storytelling style. Like a coach, viewing tape after a game, I had the context of the end to add meaning to all parts. The result was a richer experience of consuming a beautifully crafted story. It is a habit I hope I have the energy to keep up.

Walk in the Woods - A Spiritual-esque journey

You'd really have to be there.

The walk was about 90 minutes, which would equate to about 7.8 gigabytes of low res video, had I attempted to capture the entire experience for you all. But even this would barely touch the value of the trip, which was seen and heard in the panoramic ultra high definition of the eyes and ears.

Not to mention . . .

The tart burst-and-splash of wild raspberries in the mouth

       

The gentle immersion of forest humidity.

The microscopic tug on my skin from spider strands spanning the trail

The waves of oxygen-infused, temperate forest scents, interrupted once with an errant burst of citrus.

The dull poke of rocks beneath my shoes, expressed in the hard packed dirt.


It's a sensory overload, but nothing like a sweaty arcade or amusement park.  The forest doesn't come at you all at once. There are long moments where everything blends together. No acute observation comes, even for a botanist, for most of the plants are common, most of the trees look like the others, the bird calls are familiar, and the trail feels the same.

But this is okay. This homogeneity seeps into you over the span of your journey to paint a grand collage in your soul, leaving you invigorated by the end.

And there's something about the forest that pulls a man out of the illusion that he maintains full control over his existence. There are thousands of trip hazards, a thunderstorm forecast that could swell up and strike early, not to mention this three lobed rascal, hugging almost the entire trail:

I could break an ankle, catch a rash, be attacked by a swarm of Africanized bees, or more likely a swarm of mosquitoes. The forest could fold me into its life cycle and not blink. After all, it fells its own great hardwoods, and covers them in fungi until they disintegrate into the soil, and become food for the ground cover.

But it doesn't. Two mosquito bites in an hour and a half, and persistent gnats drawn toward my eyes. It's a small price to pay. That does not break my reverence, nor make me believe myself invincible. I stick to the well worn trails, and would not have even taken this one, if it hadn't shown up on Google Maps:

I've made that mistake before, on the proximate mountainside trails of my college days. A promising path would draw me away, then abandon me on the side of cliff.  That's another story of another life.

This one today was a homage to the millions of individual stories of the plants growing and dying, the insects scampering, the raptors gliding, and the squirrels gathering.  It's a reminder of my insignificance. A celebration of the wild, untamed, organic, beautiful.