Into a Landing Zone

I changed my digital footprint now that the election is past. I deleted some social media accounts, reduced the number of friends in the remaining ones, and evaluated how I get news. It is part of a self-care process to improve my physical and mental health after the recent traumatic revelations about American society. I feel better already. It was a suitable landing zone after the election.

Journey Home is a public blog and I intend to keep it that way. Writing here helps me develop narratives that can be used in other parts of my life. It is part of a process of understanding the world and society. It also provides a constant struggle to say things better with fewer words. My typos here are frequent, yet I eventually catch most of them. Each of us needs a way to think through the experiences we have and this is mine.

I resisted the recent reaction to Jeff Bezos putting the kibosh on Washington Post political endorsements before the election, and kept my subscription. Subscription to a national newspaper is needed for someone like the author of this blog. All the other national newspapers have similar problems and I don’t want to punish the reporters because of what their owner did.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette has done a good job in 1). staying in business, and 2). creating a diverse community of readers. One sees this by reading the editorial page, or what they call “Insights.” Liberal advocates, conservative crackpots, and everyone in between abound there. I welcome them all. Usually, because of their printing schedule, I hear news they report from other sources because that’s the kind of society in which we live. Subscribing to a newspaper is about the writers: local reporters, syndicated columnists, and readers who write letters to the editor and guest opinions. I wouldn’t miss some of them if they were cancelled, yet we also need them all.

For social media, I’m down to: Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Goodreads is how I keep track of my reading and find new books. Facebook is people I know from my experiences in the real world. Instagram is a place to post photos and auto post them to Facebook. Threads is a way of live blogging my life. For now, this is enough to manage. I deleted my BlueSky and LinkedIn accounts this week to reduce the clutter.

People know me from writing in public and tell me so when we meet in person. Unless we enter a police state where political enemies are harassed by the government, and citizens spy on and get nasty with their neighbors, I will continue. What else am I going to do?