Once Again Down the Rabbit Hole. And Once Again Back Out

It is the last day of 2017 (Thank God. Thank God?). My morning meditation led me to something Neil Gaiman wrote in his blog several years ago—a New Year’s wish. Beautifully written, I defied my own rules of the last few days and posted it. On Facebook.  My motivation: it really was beautiful, and profound in the way only fabulous writing can be. It was a great reminder that an authentic life requires love, learning, creating, and making mistakes. If it struck a cord with me, perhaps it would strike a cord with others. And how lovely would it be if, in 2018, we all walked around a little more inspired, a little kinder and full of love, and a little less careful in the ways that mattered. My plan: post it, credit it, and get off. What happened: as soon as I posted it, a friend almost simultaneously “loved” it. And commented. A question. It didn’t need to be answered. But. But. What if I didn’t? What if I did? What would it hurt? So I typed a quick response back. And then vowed to get off. But as I was already here, maybe I should just look at the top couple of posts on my homepage. And as I browsed, feeling that all too familiar voyeuristic rush, my reply to my friend niggled. Too braggy? Possibly self-pitying? How did it make me look to the two hundred and something people who had access to my information? So I edited it. Added one sentence for context. A sentence right on point for the persona I had been publically creating this year. And then I vowed to get off. But then another friend replied, my best friend I had known since third grade, and I certainly couldn’t not acknowledge her reply when I had already acknowledged the previous one. So I did. Short and sweet. And then off. But then just a few more glances at my homepage because I really had been wondering how that one friend was doing. And if that other friend’s boyfriend had made it back into town. And as more friends “liked” and “loved” my post, and commented, the desire to leave, the firm, soul-deep knowledge of why I had been off Facebook in the first place, left me. Eventually, I hopped to Twitter to catch up on politics, and before I knew it, it was 7:30, my legs were sore from sitting, and the chickens were late being let out. My beautiful morning routine of yoga, journaling, and organizing my day had been hijacked.

I joked with my husband yesterday when he threatened to buy popcorn at the movies that if he could not control himself and had to buy it, he could at least help control me and slap my hand away if I reached for the bucket. When he bought the popcorn, after we had already been seated, because, of course he did, I told him I wouldn’t help him eat it. “There is no way I’m going down that rabbit hole with you,” I said, my resolve firm. But, of course, I did reach my hand into that bucket, and, because he’s a kind man, he refused to slap it away (wise also because I would have been irrationally angry at that point if he had followed through), and, while I did not eat as much popcorn as I normally do, really trying to savor it before going back for more, I still ate it even though my resolve was that I wouldn’t. Snack foods are my rabbit hole in the food world. Quick, easy grab foods keep me eating at times when I am not hungry, when I would prefer to be doing something else or even when I would prefer to be eating something else. But once I enter that space, I am helpless to help myself out.

I got off social media because it is my rabbit hole of time. When I did a careful and honest examination of the quality of the life I was leading, the reasons why it fell short, social media was at the top of the list of ills. In spite of all of the research that I had read about why it is destructive to mental health, I rationalized why I stayed on it. I loved seeing pictures of my friends, their adventures, their kids. My former students were on it (even if the weren’t ON it) and it was a way to keep up with them. I often find great articles on it, either through friends reposting them, or because I have “liked” and “followed” so many publications whose writing and content I find worth reading. But really, we can rationalize anything we do that has become a bad habit. There are good reasons behind most things we do out of habit, or we wouldn’t have started doing them in the first place. What makes these reasons lose their positive power is when they comprise such a small amount of our time spent while doing it.

My time on social media these days is 10% looking at photos of friends, their adventures, and their kids and 5% finding good things to read (my students are all on Instagram or Snapchat, and, lord knows I do not need a different rabbit hole). The other 85% of it is hours of compulsive looking at mostly crap even after I have grown bored with it. And I like to say that, as an English teacher, it feeds my love for a good story when someone overshares, or leaves something (or someone) conspicuously out of a post or picture, but I have begun to suspect that my glee has less to do with the good story and more to do with a destructive need to bottom feed off the misery of others. Today, I didn’t wonder how that friend was doing. I was hoping to see a crack in her insufferably cheery demeanor. And I didn’t look to see if the boyfriend had arrived in town. I was hoping to confirm my prediction that there was something off about them as a couple. And, as long as I’m being 100% honest here, I posted the Neil Gaiman post because, yes, it was beautiful and poignant, but it also made me look literary and positive, something I haven’t been able to claim a ton of this past year. I stayed on Facebook long after I felt the need to chew off my own arm to escape because I worried about what I would miss if I left. I rationalized that I would miss the births, the engagements, the weddings, and even the lovely photos of sunsets off back porches and all of those sleeping dogs. But the reality is that the time lost down the rabbit hole of Facebook made me miss out on my life. Since deleting my account from my phone, I people watch when out in public. I work on sitting quietly and am learning once again how to be bored. It’s bliss. At home, I journal. I read again (!) and occasionally sit down to play the piano. I’ve started to work out daily and my laundry is all sorted and put away.

I’ll end the way this started, with Neil Gaiman’s words. To follow his advice, my life needs a bit more space than a rabbit hole will allow. So once again, I’m logging off and seeing where this undocumented road takes me.

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

...I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

-Neil Gaiman