Bridge over troubled water...
Sometimes, some bridges are best left in ruins.
I don't have much of a relationship with my parents.
I have one, faint memory of my father. A hospital. Tubes. An older man - I think this is my father - reaching out for me. That's it. But death isn't why I don't have a relationship with him. That was his choice; he left my mom, my baby sister, and I when I was four years old to be with his mistress.
I don't recall anything else; my mom tells me we met once more, in the late '80s, but truthfully I don't recall that. He died sometime last decade, in his sixties, alone, unmourned, having left nothing but a trail of debts and broken families up and down the eastern seaboard.
My mom married again -- a man who became my stepfather. We don't talk, this man and I, by my choice. My mom asked me why, last year. She asked, Isn't letting go part of forgiveness? And she's not wrong. But letting go doesn't mean you forget, and it doesn't mean that a relationship can go back to what it was, or even...exist.
I like thinking of relationships as bridges between two people. A bridge that connects your world to my world. Sometimes, a bridge is built on such a broken foundation that there's no point in rebuilding it. The best thing is to walk away.
Which is what I did. I walked away.
When I finally decided to work on myself, I decided that I had to be honest about how I felt. If I'm feeling OK, I'll you so; if I'm not, I'll tell you that as well. My mom and I still text every few days; I love her, even if she doesn't understand why I won't talk with my stepfather.
She asked how I felt, and I said: not great, and I wasn't just talking about my busted foot. She urged me to get involved with activities, and I bit my tongue. I didn't want to snap back, because she didn't deserve that. She was just doing her best.
The truth is I'm depressed, and I'm anxious, and I'm lonely, and starved for love and affection, and none of those things are going to change anytime soon. They won't change however much I'm involved -- and I am -- in the life of my community. Does being involved, and meeting people, and talking with people, help? Sure. But they won't cure my depression and my anxiety. If I had to rank my moods on a scale of one to ten, most days I'm at a two, and very occasionally I'll be at a three. I'd be thrilled to experience a four or a five, but I doubt I will.
You know what? That's okay. I've made my peace with it, to the extent I can find peace.
“I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.” - Robin Williams.
That quote -- especially after Robin died five years ago this past August -- always stuck with me. It's one of the reasons I'm involved with my shul, a reason why I'm quick to check in with folks I see suffering, and why -- especially when I'm deeply depressed, as I have been at times these last two years -- I force myself to reach out to people, and volunteer for things. It's why I close out these newsletters by asking folks to write me if they need anything, and remind them that I love them. Because I know what it's like to feel absolutely worthless, and I don't want you, or anyone else to feel that way.
So if you feel that way, let me climb on down into the well. I've been there, and I know the way out. It's Monday morning, and this is The Miscellanies.
I'm leaving Facebook. I'll say it again: I'm leaving Facebook. That Facebook thing? I'm leaving it, and I'm not coming back.
On Friday, when I posted my link to the newsletter (on Facebook, no less), I wrote off-handedly that people should subscribe because I was leaving Facebook. A couple of folks asked me to stay, other folks liked what I had to say. I've thought about this for the better part of this year, and truth be told, I think it's time for me to go. Here's three reasons why.
First, I'm trying to eliminate things that threaten my mental equilibrium and, specifically, let me slip into a mental space where my sobriety is threatened. The Facebook algorithms are specifically designed to surface content in your News feed that agitates you. This isn't just third-party research, this is first-hand knowledge I have from working for Facebook on an alternative to their main named Paper (which was shelved in 2015). It's only gotten worse since. My mood is actually worse after spending time in the News feed, and the amount of curation I do doesn't seem to help much.
I've concluded that, for me, Facebook is a lot like drinking. I don't like the person that I feel like after I engage with it, so I'm going to walk away.
Second, while I respect the idea of not surrendering a platform to the right wing, the reality is that that fight is over. Mark Zuckerberg may not be a right-winger, but he's made a conscious decision that the only thing that matters to Facebook is the size of your audience. He's decided that right-wingers have the biggest audiences, that they need to be courted and placated, and so that's going to be where Facebook's pointed going forward. It's things like calling Warren an existential threat (which is correct, and means that she won't get a fair shake on the platform), consistently failing to deal with organic disinformation, and most recently, using Breitbart (!!!) as a fact-checking organization.
These aren't the things that can be fixed by boycotts or other forms of direct action; that assumes that Facebook is a disinterested platform (which suits Mark just fine) when in fact it's a very consciously skewed publisher. It's just that Mark doesn't want to be held to the same standards of responsibility that publishers are. My decision to leave is based entirely around Facebook's bad actions (which pose a mortal threat to our democracy) and ignore whatever chaff they might say, which is meaningless and designed to lull people into staying.
In short: you can't change Facebook from within, you can only fight it from outside. As the old song goes: Whose side are you on? Facebook picked their side, I've picked mine, and it's time for people to choose.
Finally, I'm a youngblood, but I'm old enough in computer terms to know a world before Facebook. We were able to connect, to make friends, and to keep up with everyone's lives just fine; it just wasn't as convenient. And I get that. But what it was was intentional, and it was active, not passive. Relationships take work. Again, to go back to my newsletter: I am making active choices about being with people, about sharing my life with people, and about being here now with people.
I'm leaving Facebook to force the choice. Relationships are a two-way street; if I choose to share my life and my time with you, I am sharing something that's precious to me, and I need people to respect it and cherish it just as much.
Folks don't need Facebook in order to do that. There's 168 hours in the week, 730 in a month. If folks can't spare, say, 10 or 20 or 30 of them to keep up their relationships, then that says everything I need to know about the value they place on those relationships. I'm not saying I'm the best at doing that -- far from it -- but I'm making a choice about it, and I'm done surrendering my agency to a third party that doesn't give a single solitary fuck about my relationships, except insofar as they make them money.
I'm tired of the damn algorithms deciding what I see and don't see about the people and things I care about, and I'm taking matters back into my hands. That's why I'm leaving. And maybe, so should you.
As of this morning, there's 364 days until the 2020 election. I've got my preferences in this race, but I won't get into those right now. What I will tell you is that this is the point, right now, when shit starts getting real. We've got 92 days - counting both today and Monday, February 3, 2020 - until the Iowa caucuses begin. Eight days after that comes the New Hampshire Primary; eleven days later, the Nevada caucuses, and a week after that, the South Carolina primary.
In calendar terms:
February 3: Iowa caucuses
February 11: New Hampshire primary
February 22: Nevada caucuses
February 29: South Carolina primary.
This is when the real culling of the field begins - right now.
On Friday, it was Beto O'Rourke deciding to call it wraps. That was a tough decision to make; Beto had some good folks working for him, and he finally seemed to be hitting his stride, but it was too late. This POLITICO article goes into solid detail about just what went sideways for Beto.
This is such a frustrating debate. Here, I'll spell it out: either you think climate change is an existential threat, and thus we need to do everything, and I mean everything, in our power to fight it, or you don't.
If you don't, what would you call that other than denialism? I'm serious.
The planet is on fire, including her home state of California, and the Speaker is worried about...the debt? I think Nancy Pelosi is probably the greatest House Speaker since Sam Rayburn, and she's also wrong here. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.
Links:
I'm extremely sad about the end of Deadspin. I wrote some things for them, once upon a time, when I believed I could write. Here's two excellent articles spelling out why outlets like Deadspin are dying -- Jack Moore in The Guardian (another place I wrote for, once upon a time) and Jon Liew in the Indy.
Dave Dayen delivers a master class in explanatory journalism as he dissects Elizabeth Warren's plan to pay for Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All plan. You can read Warren's Medium post about the plan here.
When I was suddenly looking for work late this summer, I interviewed at We. This feature explains so much about a strange experience.
Are you a freelancer? Then you should really check out this list of resources to help you freelance.
If you're thinking of leaving Facebook, like me, you could do worse than following Andrea Grimes' advice here. And while you’re at it, you should subscribe to her newsletter.
No sports today, ‘cause this is already long enough, but I'll have a preview of MLS Cup for Friday. MLS Cup is Sunday, November 10, at 3 pm.
Listen: I love you. I think you're all doing the best we can with what we got. If you need anything -- time, a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen with, whatever -- I'm here. Just hit reply. If you like this newsletter, spread the word and share it.