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About six or so years ago, my daughter, 4 years old, came home from Sunday school and proudly exclaimed, "Did you know that God made the world in six days?" My wife and I looked at each other and immediately realized that we had allowed our daughter to be propagandized. This was a pivotal moment in my faith (I only speak for myself), since it forced me to come to terms with the fact that I did not want my daughter learning the themes of the very faith I espoused. I thought, If I really believe this stuff and really identify as a Christian, why do I balk at my daughter learning what I hold as true? It was a tough pill to swallow. It also drew my attention to the haphazard nature of Sunday School and religious education. When she came home with that information, I had an odd epiphany of professionalism: if I, as a teacher, have to jump through hoops to maintain my professional status as an educator, why was I leaving my child in the charge of a non-professional? What standard do they work by? I realized that Sunday school teachers have no standardized level of professionalism. I haven't sent my daughter to Sunday school since then. Which is easy because I haven't attended church since 2011. What I'm trying to get at is this: professionalism matters to me. I appreciate the need for professional standards and codes of ethics in all professions. I appreciate the need for governing bodies to oversee professional workers. And I trust that standardized, well-governed workers should have some level of expertise that I can rely on for one thing or another. Professionalism, however, is expensive. And the Internet is not. And god, I'd love to think I'm literate enough to save a few bucks on therapy now and then by searching symptoms online. Steven Novella at NeuroLogica suggests that I'm trying out the Google University Effect, which feeds confirmation bias. Novella writes,
However, I can't afford much in the way of psychotherapists right now. So I brave the Internet and hope not to feed my confirmation bias. I can look up things about my depression and hope not to feed it!
Here's to unprofessionalism! Except for occasional anonymous confessions, I've never felt the need to have a Tumblr. However, I've decided to open one up just so I can embed posts here and elsewhere, as I did in my last post. So here's my Tumblr: I'm unlikely to use it a lot. But it's there. Yay. UPDATE: Perhaps it's a place for me to post flattering selfies and other ego boosts. Perhaps.
Two nights ago, while pulling my dog with the wagon, I stopped walking, looked down at my phone, and posted this:
I posted similar "On hiatus" messages on my other accounts, and subsequently deleted Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram from my phone.
Why?
What I think I'm trying to say is this: Social media has not been making me happy in any way. I make some connections here and there, but the public aspect of social media has grown tiresome. I'm obsessed with looking at my phone and checking for notifications, but I just feel further and further from real relationships and I simply can't do it anymore.
So I'm going for an indefinite public hiatus. I haven't deleted any accounts; my Messaging apps and accounts will exist in order to keep connections here and there. But, for the time being, I'm not going to "maintain a social media presence" per se. What will I maintain over this period?
I started to feel that social media was taking far more from me than I was getting from it and my real-life relationships and my ego were suffering.
So it's time for a break.
USING THE WIDE ANGLE LENS ON THE S5's REAR-FACING CAMERA:
USING THE MACRO LENS ON THE S5's REAR-FACING CAMERA:
USING THE MACRO LENS ON THE SCHOOL'S iPAD:
USING THE FISHEYE LENS ON THE S5's REAR-FACING CAMERA:
USING THE FISHEYE LENS ON THE S5's FRONT-FACING CAMERA:
Fun, fun times.
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Musician.
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April 2024
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