When I quit Facebook in late 2016, it was because the site had shifted so much from learning about people I knew and keeping in touch with them to a collective political scream, with divides worsening as the people I knew, all of us processing what happened during the 2016 elections, fought with conservative relatives … Continue reading Decompressing About Recent Events
Tag: social media
Acceptance and Resistance
Today was a blustery, sunny day. My girlfriend and I went out. I waited in the car rereading passages from Hermias and did a 15-minute Headspace meditation on acceptance while she navigated the line at a store to buy office supplies. People entered and exited every few minutes with balloons. She said that the interior … Continue reading Acceptance and Resistance
An Etiquette of Crowns, Floral and Verdant
At the beginning of Plato’s Republic, specifically at 328b-c, the elderly Cephalus is wearing a wreath upon his head because he had just finished offering divine sacrifices in the courtyard. In addition to generic ritual wreaths, ones that use specific materials — laurel, bay, rosemary, olive, oak, and so on — have been used for millennia … Continue reading An Etiquette of Crowns, Floral and Verdant
Don’t Say Pagan
Something last week reminded me of this poem I wrote back in 2017, but didn't publish because it was right after I watched a blogosphere fight, I was decompressing after thinking about a situation that happened online back in my teens, and I didn't want to fan flames. This is similar — but not identical — … Continue reading Don’t Say Pagan
Maxim 62: ἐλπίδα αἴνει
I. To Elpis (Hope) Elpis, you remain in the jar, the potential of libations. Before words are spoken, on the tip of the tongue, among our racing desires, adventurous, grasping thoughts, you shine like a struck nebula, dispensing grace like flowers. You are the brightness we grasp, unseeing the Fates who know the topography of … Continue reading Maxim 62: ἐλπίδα αἴνει
A Threshold Prayer
This is the prayer I actually use when I finish doing my morning offerings — which end, coincidentally, when I'm about to pack up my bag and head out to work. I pray to Hekate, to Hermes, and to Apollon Agyieus, the guardians of the space [or gate, if I'm feeling very poetic] between the … Continue reading A Threshold Prayer
A Miscellany of Verses on Opinion and Conflict
A few verses about social media, opinion, and unknown ways forward.
The “Why” Is Not, and Cannot Be, Uniform
I was thinking recently about a parasocial interaction online — parasocial because the person does not know me, nor I lim — in which I assisted with an information need. It got me thinking about actions versus reasons and how the two differ. In that specific case, I helped the person with the question despite … Continue reading The “Why” Is Not, and Cannot Be, Uniform
The Machines We Build, the Nightmares They Make of Us
While I am on hiatus from Twitter, I have not left the Internet, and it's the perfect opportunity to use spare moments of time to turn some Twitter threads into actual blog posts. This is one of them. It is about fragmentation, social media, and (ultimately) how some things happening in our society today have … Continue reading The Machines We Build, the Nightmares They Make of Us
KALLISTI 