Last year was a turbulent year, one that for the most part was wasted on Facebook arguing over politics and religion and barely focused on what’s right in the world. 
Slowly, I could feel myself shifting from the person I know that I am to someone who was spouting the same “buzzwords” with vehement passion and losing myself to the world of social media helping perpetuate this idea of a world so bound for the path of destruction and adversity, barely taking moments to reconnect with what is real. 

I am real, I have my own thought and I know that many of them don’t jive well with so many people. Even though my circle is small, watching people that I admired and respected fall victim to the same patterns of anger and distress and slowly weeding out any voice of dissent, was a troubling thing. 
I recently watched a TED Talk about social media and how it effects people and how we become distracted, addicted, unable to appreciate much of the real life because we start to take what is put out on those sites, as what is true and real. 

Over the years, I have noticed and still used it because my finding physical friendships in a world that is so virtual gave me a sense of isolation and sadness because I am still human and I still need to socialize to keep my sanity. 

The irony, of course, is that even while socializing in a virtual world, I was becoming actually isolated and actually sad because all those things on there, no matter how many real connections you make to people, inevitably, those aren’t the truest of them and it doesn’t and can never replace actual physical contact.  Seeing into people eyes in the real world, noticing the details in a person quirks and listening to the alterations in their voices when speaking and most importantly, hearing what they are actually saying. 

On the internet, words are words but when we communicate, we do so with more than just words.  We say things to each other with our eyes, the inevitable mispronunciation or word scrambles, the giggles that you can tell are either sarcasm or true to life belly laughs.  

I miss those things. I feel them slipping away and as much as I want to stay connected, I think it’s best to remove myself from that world and reconnect with the things about and in life that are beautiful and are inspiring and are worthy of my full attention NOT 20 different distractions in a course of ten minutes. 

I know we can do better in life.  I know I can and I know popularity was never something I aspired too and when feeling like I shouldn’t say something because someone might not like it or agree with it or understand it, then that irony is that what I was not saying was because I wanted to remain in my small loop, to remain heard and respected instead of just being myself. 

Writing was always a passion and speaking about what I feel is true to me is something that has always helped me stay tuned to myself and others but there is no place for that there. 

The attention span of most users is about 20 seconds so anything after that is a waste of time. 

With that said…