In Search of … Authentic Truth-Telling
Reignited and Reimagined: I don’t know what it is about long form blogging that lights me up, but somehow it is just my jam. I was on social media for years, bored to tears and feeling completely irrelevant, as if my voice was totally lost in the cacophony, but the minute I decided to leave mainstream social media and recommitted to having a blog, it was like some tiny ember inside me sparked back into flame.
I’m not kidding. It was instantaneous. Suddenly I wake up each day thinking “what interesting truth can I find to write about today?” I’m not always going to say things that you agree with, but I promise to try to speak my truth without insulting yours.
Engagement? I think not… On FB and Instagram everything is focused on how many followers you have and how many likes each post gets. They call it engagement, but is that really what it is? Is a click or a like or even a “buy my thing” or “give me your email address” truly the measure of engagement? It felt hollow. And it made me sad.
I started blogging back in 2006 - almost twenty years ago now. I had a regular following, and even joined a group blog for a while that featured different people posting on different days of the week. Then the world started to get busy. And tech-focused. And social-media obsessed. And everything started going a thousand miles an hour.
I just wanted to make it stop. I found myself craving more than 140 words. More than a Snapchat or a Reel or a Thread. I needed to get back to some sort of authentic truth-telling, and that requires a little more than a drive-by from a thousand strangers who don’t really know me, or even courtesy “likes” from those who do.
Micro-blogging makes me gag: If you truly have a seven-second attention span and don’t have time to read anything longer than 140 characters, I’m not sure we’re a good fit as “friends” anyway. That’s not the kind of engagement that feeds my soul. I’m not interested in the scroller-bys or the idea of being seen as an “influencer”. I don’t want sponsorship or ad revenue. I want to be an authentic human, not a commodity.
For a long time I let those same strangers define my self-worth. People I have never met and probably never will meet. People who don’t know me and don’t really even want to know me. So I’m starting over. With zero followers and no platform. Just me and my authentic voice, speaking out into the void. And it. feels. amazing! Even if it’s only my own voices that echos back to me, it feels honest and rings true and is not controlled by someone else’s ideas of what constitutes something worthy of inclusion. It feels…
A little like stepping off the hamster wheel. Not falling off it. Stepping off. Intentionally. Because no one needs to be that exhausted.
Honestly I’m surprised it took me as long as it did to leave. I have always, and I mean always complained about how much I hate superficial relationships. I would rather have coffee with one person and have a real, deep conversation with them than go to a party filled with small talk and selfies any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Why I ever thought social media would somehow fulfill that role for me I have no clue. In fact, the only satisfaction I ever got from FB was in a few small groups I founded where I tried desperately to break through that sticky top crust and find the meaty underbelly of real relationships.
There are good people everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I cherish many of the friends I did manage to make in that space, but at the same time, I’m so incredibly relieved. One of the things that seems to get lost in the big overwhelming AI-generated social space is authenticity. So when it became actual work to separate fact from fiction and truth from sensationalism I thought “ok how is this benefitting me?”
It wasn’t. Not only that, it was hurting me. It was creating an unhealthy addiction to the tiny dopamine hits that were firing my nervous system into overdrive. The cost was my sense of identity. My health. My self!
Taking back control: I crave an honest exchange of ideas, and so I’ve moved my control back into my own court. On my own website, where no algorithm will censor my message or silence my voice.
You don’t have to agree with me, or be in the same boat with me. If you’re still loving social, that’s cool too. I’m not here to pass judgment on anyone for their choices. I just needed a place to stretch my legs and practice my scales.
I believe the way through is love, inclusion and dissolution, not necessarily revolution. Waking up out of our suffering, dissolving the rigidness of our ego, showing up, being present, and having compassion.
We’re all struggling to make sense of the world. I’m here for it though. I’m in it with you. It’s ok.
Grab my hand…