Fighting Futility
I saw that I hadn't published anything since November 30th of last year, which sounds about right, so I made a commitment to post something today to knock the rust off of my keyboard. (This is going to be straight off the cuff with minimal editing, so bear with me.) The holiday season treated me well, and the new year is off to a great start, but I have been struggling with my relationship to the internet. I've fallen into predictable patterns of scrolling the same websites day in and day out, souring my view of the web. It's not all been bad, but it has left me with this sense of unease compounded by at least three daily articles talking about, "What Happened to the Internet?" like the web is some sort of celebrity that partied too hard and got arrested for driving 100 down Ventura with an open container in one hand and gun in the other. I realize the intent of those posts is to generate engagement by creating outrage around the thesis statement, but fuck me if I don't sometimes agree with the assessment that this place is just fetid pool of liquid pig shit. However, I am an optimist and believe in the general goodness of most people (billionaire class excluded), so the internet can't be all terrible. That fact is demonstrated to me daily when I don't focus on things like the daily Epstein updates and the stories about how AI is burning the world to the ground. The central thought spinning around the tilt-a-whirl that is my mind that spurred me to write tonight is this: what am I doing to improve the internet and contribute positively to its existence? The answer is: nothing. I'm a leech. I take without giving back. I don't post much and I haven't built anything useful to share with the world. I would like to change both of those facts. Not that being a dev or content creator are the only ways to contribute, but those were the examples that came to mind. To help fight enshittification and to tip the scale towards positivity, I am going to use this space as well as my other socials to add my voice to the conversation, so stay tuned. Thanks for stopping by!