This will be my last
blog post.
Three/four years ago,
when I told people what we were going to be doing with our lives, lots of them
said lots of encouraging things about our decision. A lot of these people
suggested I keep a blog and/or post lots of stuff on facebook because they wanted
to see what we’re up to. This, I have attempted to do.
There were others who
were less than positive. People who couldn’t understand why we would give up our
“comfortable” existence for a life of, what they saw, as uncertainty, financial
insecurity and not “normal”. A lot of whom
weren’t very good at disguising this fact.
We want to live a life
where we take more responsibility for the consumption of Earth’s resources, our
food, the materials we use for construction etc etc. It has not been easy and
living in the part of the world that we do, it is not entirely possible to be
as self sufficient as we would like. We still consume. We still buy things
harder-core followers of our life style would disapprove of. I probably should
have whittled my own copy of Battles of Westeros out of bamboo or knitted my
pants from nettles.
Now we’re here and
living our chosen lifestyle, I have become increasing disillusioned with modern
society and its wilful ignorance. We seem content with the banal, the deliberately
thick, the unquestioning status quo and selfish wants. Choosing to ignore or
even deliberately work and argue against those who find themselves in less
fortunate circumstances than us. The current refugee crisis, for me, has extenuated
these issues. I frequently find myself in online discussions with people using “national
pride” as thinly veiled racism. I am constantly amazed at the amount of media (social
and otherwise) time given over to “celebrities” whose sum total of their
achievements appears to be a bikini shoot, sleeping with someone else’s partner
and/or sex worker or just generally being an unlikeable twat. I could go on and
on and on. My wife and I have actually conducted a bit of an experiment on
facebook. Noting how many people show some form of interest in our various “shares”.
Put something up like some new ducklings and or a picture of Isaac doing
something cute and people are crawling over themselves to “like” and comment.
Put something up uncomfortable like fois gras production or pig farming, one
possibly two “interactions”. A symptom, I feel, of the mass media fed world we
now find ourselves in.
Something that I have
also grown to dislike is the self congratulatory social media presence. Look at
me. Am. I. Not. Great. I baked a cake. I bought a new phone. I went for a stroll.
I got up this morning........and so on. (Only mildly less annoying than the “I’m
angry/upset but I don’t want to talk about it. But, please everyone ask me
about it so I can feel something” status) Then, I realised, I’m just as bad. I
have pictures of things I’ve made/done online. I keep this blog solely for the
approval of others. Are we just doing this to seek approval for the life
choices of which we aren’t sure we should have made? I’ve shared a funny dog.
Just yesterday I shared something I saw about being at university in the 90s.
It was funny and I think I “got” most, every single thing on the list. Why did
I share it? I don’t know. Perhaps for some reason hoping to engage in some sort
of nostalgic conversation with old friends. But why? My engagement with FB and
the content that is frequently on there is a source of discourse in my own mind.
Were it not for the fact that it is the only source of communication between me
and a small number of friends and clients I would have closed my account a
while ago. I still enjoy it as a way of keeping up to date with some of my
interests (films, ASOIAF and general board gamery) but I am increasingly
failing to see the point in it. I will, in complete contradiction to everything
I’ve just said, share this new post on the aforementioned site! What a
hypocrite.
The keeping of this
blog, for me, is merely an extension of the issues above. I have not posted
anything for a long time here because of this and this is the last hoorah. I
feel that I wasn’t keeping it because I had something valuable to share with
the world. I wasn’t going to start some form of lifestyle or political
revolution. Like everyone else I’m probably just looking for some form of reaffirmation
of my own decisions. However, this stops today. I’ll leave the blog up. If
someone wants to have a go at pallet furniture or rearing their own meat
because of something on here, then great. But doubt that will happen. This isn’t
a cry for help. I’m not after a whole load of people to give me a self esteem
boost by self pitying fishing for compliments. It’s just a statement of intent.
Perhaps I’ll change my mind. Who knows? For now it’s goodbye.