One Year Later- Living a Flesh and Blood Life

-from an “The Art of Dan Clowes: Modern Cartoonist”

I read that a little over a year ago.
Afterwards I immediately asked myself, “Does the internet make me happier?”
The answer was, “no.”
The next question I asked was, “But does it make me a better- and by that I mean a kinder, more considerate, more informed- person?”
The answer was also, “no.”

And so, a year ago I started paring down my internet use. I said to goodbye to tumblr, although I created a new placeholder account with a scattering of illustrations. I hardly ever used twitter but at that point I set it up to just tweet from this blog and my instagram. I don’t use it for anything else and check on it about every 3-4 months. I quit my favorite sci-fi website bc I’d been finding their ethics dubious. Pinterest is a sea of serenity that I used to spend 30 minutes a day on repinning my friends amazing finds. Then they changed their algorithm. I no longer see everyone’s pins so I drifted away. I maybe spend 30 minutes on it every 1-2 weeks. Instagram is currently my favorite. I am privy to the wips of so many amazing artists.
Which leaves Facebook. Unfortunately it’s still the best way to reconnect with old friends, but I do a lot of scrolling at high speed bc there’s no good way to filter posts. And of course you don’t see all of your friends’ posts anyway so periodically I have to look them up.
The virtual pruning has improved my real life immeasurably. I like people again. And I’m happy to engage in the delusion that they like me.

I still love to blog and read blogs, but the drawing table beckons…