This Is So Much Better!

 It's oddly empowering to hold good memories inside, rather than feel experiences are only validated by online 'likes.'  Having said that, here's a pic from last night for the few people actually paying any attention to my blog...  do you love or hate me?  I have no idea who found this and bothers to look at it, but Hi!  I appreciate you.  

Last night was great.  I went with the lovely Rita and her family to watch the fireworks in New Port Richey Florida.  Jessica and her beautiful daughters, who live in NPR joined us.  This is a pic of Jessica, her daughters Chloe and Piper and me watching the fireworks. 

This was a flood reunion.  Rita took me in to her house two years in a row when the sea rose above my flood level and filled my house with sea water and sewage.  God bless her for giving me and my doggies one decent night of sleep for a while before the hellish aftermath.

Jessica was already a refugee of sorts when we met.  She left an abusive husband and was taken in by the family which housed me after the flood.  We spent a few months together and shared a trauma bond which turned into a friendship.  

This is Rita, her work friend and I last night.

Chris and Shannan Watts

 Like so many, I'm haunted by the story of Chris Watts brutally murdering his beautiful wife and daughters.   

On social media, as seen here, their lives couldn't look more perfect.  Although I do believe Shanann was very happy with the animal she married, as were the children she brought into this world.  However he made the decision to destroy them in such a horrific way for a piece of ass and maybe less debt.  

My impulse to look into Facebook land to see what was going on this morning arrived as usual.   Then this family tragedy popped into my head after listening to an interview with a good friend and co-workers of his last night.  The police were seeking to extract leads from the good friend.   If they listened to him they would have been thrown way off the trail but they already knew Chris was the murderer at that point anyway.  

The friend said mostly positive things about them both.  Although he unfriended Shanann because she posted every three minutes and it was annoying.  I've done the same with most people selling their essential oils and pyramid scheme stuff too.  Or even the people with chronic complaints or fixations.  I'd unfollow first, then unfriend if there was a secondary offense.... or block them completely if they unfriended me... again, exceptionally childish behavior but I digress.

As is the case with the Watt's, rather than seeing real people and a glimpse into their real lives,  I'd actually see a carefully curated, edited, airbrushed snapshot of the story a person both wants to believe about themselves and wants everyone else to believe.  

Maybe It's Time to Switch From Coffee to Espresso

 The two French press-fulls of coffee take longer to drink than the length of my laptop attention span without social media mental masturbation.  Espresso is less than a quarter of the volume but might just pack a greater caffeine punch.  

Artificial

 Artificial" describes anything made, produced, or contrived by humans rather than occurring naturally. It often refers to imitations of natural things (e.g., artificial flowers) or synthesized substitutes (e.g., artificial sweeteners).

_________

This definition was ironically generated by Artificial Intelligence.  The entire definition is complex and many sided, used in many different ways.  For my purposes, the connection I just made is between artifice and social media with today's addition of artificial friendships.

One artificial friendship of mine recently ended.  Although it ended in an instant, it was years in the making.  It was my decision to end but it wasn't a choice so much as an inevitability.  It felt like a death.  I was well aware of her being diagnosed with zero empathy, a condition she proudly confessed to, most likely because it makes her the most at something and she likes to think of herself as the best or the most at/of everything.  That quality alone was something I lived with for years.

So why did this one final conversation end it for me?  It bugged me that she couldn't possibly understand on account of her pathological lack of empathy but it bugged me even more that I couldn't put my thoughts and emotions into words.  Finally I consulted chatgpt and WOW.  This is the dead on response:

One way to articulate it could be:

"I've spent a long time trying to maintain this friendship, but I've realized that I no longer feel heard, respected, or understood in it. Over the years, many concerns I've raised have been dismissed outright, and that pattern has caused me a great deal of pain. The issue isn't a single disagreement. It's that we no longer seem to share a common basis for discussing reality, and our conversations leave me feeling invalidated rather than connected. I've reached a point where continuing the friendship is no longer healthy for me, so I'm choosing to step away. I wish you well, but I need relationships where there is mutual respect, empathy, and a willingness to engage seriously with concerns that matter."

If you want to be more direct about the final incident:

"Your statements about Trump being Jesus, being sent by God, and the dismissal of any evidence that contradicts that belief made me realize that our differences go beyond politics. They revealed a fundamental gap in how we understand reality and evaluate truth. Combined with a long history of feeling dismissed by you, I no longer believe this friendship can provide the mutual understanding and respect I need."

One thing worth considering: if her diagnosis genuinely includes profound deficits in empathy, you may never receive the acknowledgment, understanding, or validation you hope for from explaining your reasons. That doesn't mean you shouldn't explain them. It just means the explanation may be more for your own clarity and closure than for changing her mind or obtaining agreement.

____

Absolutely yes to that last paragraph, this exercise was just for me and I knew that and it helps.  

The reality is, this existence is heavily polluted with artifice.  Some can be helpful, but at what cost.  But the closer the imitation stands next to the real thing, the greater the contrast and the less tolerable it is as a result.

Pointless Social Media Activities

 It would be amazing to find out how much time I spent on social media:

• Seeing my friend count or follower number change and then looking through entire lists to determine who unfollowed or unfriended me or started following me.  Is it that super creepy dude again?
• While going through the list seeing someone I hadn't seen posting in a while only to realize they died
• Checking to see how many likes my post got and then thinking about who didn't like it and vowing to reduce support for that person

It turned me into a teenager!

The absolute pointlessness of it all.  And pointless things to do are OK if they are relaxing or provide a break from an unpleasant situation, allowing for time to reboot, look at the problem another way and come up with new solutions.  

You Know What? Social Media Is Just Like TV.

 It's been probably decades since watching TV in the traditional sense- - lying on the couch or bed, flipping channels or tuning in specifically for a program or movie.  So that muscle is gone.  It apparently was replaced by staring at the computer screen.  Now that I have deactivated my social media, I realize they served the same exact, pointless purpose.  

Artificial Community Vs. Real Community

 Social media truly creates an artificial sense of community.  And the absence of social media truly encourages actual community.  I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't experiencing it first hand.  It's amazing how much my life has changed in these whatever number of days it's been (don't know offhand but less than a month.)