lethe

©2022 Michael Raven

melancholic
i slowly crawl
from digital lethe
to analogue afterlife
rewilding my elder
ashen self

---

I probably should explain my thought process, as nebulous and unformed as it currently stands. I’ve been pulling back my digital presence and trying to reclaim my real-world being. It’s unrealistic to think that anyone in this day and age can walk away from the digital age completely (well, some have, but there are a few benefits I am unwilling to be done with such as email, information access, and writing; and most people have at least a few things they find beneficial for having come from this era).

However, things such as social media have ultimately been hollow and unfulfilling for me. Someone recently referred to much of what dominates the internet these days as “anger-tainment” and I couldn’t agree more. I’m weary of the anger and the tribalism and artificial constructs designed to divide people, which is why I’ve been posting less — I am more engaged in things like weaving, sewing, cooking and baking. Things that, aside from instructional information and raving about that can be found online, are almost wholly present in the analogue world. I find this calming.

So, I am in the process of closing out my digital accounts. Not entirely, as I will still “exist” as far as they are concerned, but I am deleting apps and logging out, removing bookmarked links so that I have to consider if I really want to visit a site.

WordPress is a different beast. It is a more unilateral thing, although not entirely so. I write, I engage when folks want to engage. I read. I rarely have a knee-jerk response to anything on WordPress. For now, I’ll continue my daily assault on writing — the other services are primarily going into the pile of neglect.

I’d rather be real. I’m afraid that it gets increasingly difficult to determine if anyone, including the self, is real when too immersed in the digital world. Maybe that’s the source of our feelings of a “matrix effect” simulated world phenomena that people go on about. Who knows what is real when everything it tied to a series of windows tinted with rose and dusty lens views?