🧠Most of my brain energy this week was occupied with grief and anger over the current state of Palestine and anxiety over my upcoming recital. Even so I had a fairly eventful week. Trying to reset my mental state as much as possible so I don’t start the new week with overwhelm.

👻As a self-identifying goth and lover of all things spooky, the expenditure on brain energy for the things mentioned above and also a very skinny wallet this month means that I did not make any grand (or petite) Halloween plans. I’m completely okay with this because other things are more important but also keeping my Instagram use to a minimum has really killed the FOMO. The past few years I’d always feel like I failed somehow in not taking the opportunity to fly my spooky flag as aggressively as possible during October but so much of that is based on consumerism. Ironically this is the first year we’ve had actual Halloween decorations and I’m perfectly happy with keeping them to myself than worrying if they’re good enough for social media.

👠Went to my first bingo game as an adult and also my first drag bingo. I love that the queer community here is so active and more importantly I love that events here adhere to what we fondly refer to as “old-people hours”. A big barrier to taking part in queer or queer-centric events back in Tokyo was the focus on nightlife, bars and drinking. All of which I do enjoy but found fairly early that I do not have the mental or physical fortitude for. It’s also nice to know that you’re more likely to make friends who will remember you the next day without a potential drunken haze getting in the way.

🎪While it’s technically not part of week 43 I have to say that my tsugaru shamisen recital was successful! I was but a blip in the many amazing performances and although I was nowhere near “good”, the audience was kind to beginners and I also wasn’t “terrible”. Most importantly though, despite making me physically ill before the show my stage fright did not affect the performance! I felt like I did as well as I was going to do regardless of the circumstances and I finally have proof that I can play an instrument infront of a crowd of complete strangers without choking.

💪🏾I did some aerial hoop for the first time in months and for the first time since my last horrible endometriosis flare up which left me in too much pain to move properly for weeks. My stamina is understandably non-existent and I have to build up a tolerance to the motion sickness once again (worse than I remember if I’m being honest) but my muscle memory stayed intact and I’m stronger than I expected.

💻Trying to stay updated and share information means that I am back on social media (primarily Twitter) for the time being. While I did revive my Tumblr after stepping back from Twitter and Instagram I am considering deleting it (again) since I have a blog for sharing longform thoughts and Tumbr can be just as unproductive. Currently debating what I would like to do with my Wordpress blog which I’ve ben using for book reviews since I also have a Bookstagram. I prefer and genuinely love the bookish community on Instagram but the pressure for pretty pictures (which I do not have) is so intense I don’t share as much as I want to. The workaround is to realize that I’m just doing this for myself anyways so it shouldn’t matter. Will probably work towards doing an account purge at the end of this year.

💸Last week I wrote about caving and reviving my Kindle Unlimited subscription. I have since pivoted hard in the other direction and finally deleted my Amazon account altogether along with the subscription. It’s a bit more work but I can always flip through manga in person at a bookstore or trying the free chapters that other sites have available before deciding to purchase. Similarly, I will have to find alternative ways of supporting the Amazon-only authors that I follow but luckily many of them have Patreons or Ko-fi and more authors have been starting to publish wide so I will keep an eye out. Will think about how this can factor into my no/low buy as well.

🎧In leaving Kindle Unlimited, I rejoined Scribd since they also host a fair amount of indie publications and their audiobook selection so far tends to outstrip the current libraries that I use so I will definitely be spoiled for choice.

📖Halfway through “A Day of Fallen Night” and the plot payoff has been great so far. Like in “The Priory of the Orange Tree”, Samantha Shannon spends a painstaking amount of time building up all corners of the world and trickling bits of the plot in before it all starts to pick up steam. Currently challenging myself to finish before the end of October (💦) as it’s been a while since I’ve started the month with a clean reading slate.

🧶Finished crocheting my first cocoon cardigan and currently working on a wrap top in a gorgeous shade of eggplant purple using this pattern from Madeline Shirley.

📓I’m getting more excited about starting my 2024 Hobonichi planners since they begin around the end of November. That way I have about a month to figure out how best to utilize everything for the new year. I got a decent amount of inspiration from this video by Youtuber JashiiCorrin who has an impressive lineup of notebooks and fun ways of using them.

#weeknotes #personal

The temperature has been fluctuating between warm and suddenly cold and everyone is hurrying to get their flu shots.

• 📖
  • I’m still chugging along at A Day of Fallen Night. Finally familiar with the characters so my reading should be picking up from now.
  • Also trying to wrap up my reading of 和菓子のアン which I started in February! To be fair to myself, my Japanese reading pace has only recently improved so I feel like I’m finally in a good rhythm but I also desperately want to read something new.
• 🎧
  • Listening to the audiobook for The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna read by Samara MacLanen which is one of the cozier books I’ve read in a while. I always appreciate when narrators go all in on different voices and the entire cast of characters are delightful.
  • Relistening to The Magnus Archives in preparation for The Magnus Protocol which I’m very excited for 👻
• 📺
  • Finished Castlevania: Nocturne. The pacing got much better towards the end and I am now fully invested and excited for season 2.
  • Started and finished Bocchi the Rock! which was incredibly heartwarming, relatable and funny. Currently recommending it to anyone who appreciates indie rock bands, live houses and friendships 💖.
  • Started the new Goosebumps series on Disney+. A bit disappointed in the direction of aging up the characters and making it serialized instead of an anthology. Goosebumps is such a good intro to horror for younger demographics that they could have gone with a Stranger Things direction as opposed to something closer to Riverdale. While on my soapbox I also dislike the trend of making every remake incredibly visually dark in the sense that the blue filter makes it hard to see what’s going on. Horror can be bright! with colors! Leaning into a more campy, physical horror effects is also perfect for Goosebumps. However it does seem to have a fairly positive reception so far and I am not the demographic so I will keep watching to see where it goes.
• 📚
  • Trying to balance getting informed about what’s happening with Palestine and how I can help without getting sucked into doomscrolling. Being overly anxious or nihilistic about humanity is not going to be helpful right now.
• 🎪
  • Currently practicing for my first tsugaru shamisen performance. I have immense stage fright and I’ve never worked up the courage to play an instrument infront of people due to the way my hands shake so this will be a crazy big challenge. I suppose that even if it’s a disaster, it’s something that I can say I tried.
• 💸
  • Still sticking to my no/low buy trial leading up to 2024 and will be doing a write up soon. I did cave and resubscribe to Kindle Unlimited again since lots of indie authors I follow publish there and there are a good few manga series available for free. I prefer to buy and read manga physically for ease and to support the authors but it’s good to be able to try a few volumes of a series beforehand.
• 🔗
  • Free Ebooks for a Free Palestine! 🔗 https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/495-free-ebooks-for-a-free-palestine Haymarket Books has a great collection of books on Palestine and are currently offering 3 of those ebooks for free. The last free ebook bundle I received from them was during the BLM protests and those were also incredibly informative.

#weeknotes #languagelearning #books #reading #media #links

Decided to switch the Week Links into a Weeknotes post inspired by others that I’ve seen people doing.

📖 What I’m Reading:

• Still making my way through “A Day of Fallen Night” by Samantha Shannon. The book is so large I end up saving my reading for before bed and first thing in the morning. The hardest part of any fantasy for me is learning all the names and terminology so I’m using copious amounts of sticky tabs (the blue is for every time a new character shows up 😅). Enjoying it so far though 🐉

🎧 What I’m Listening to:

• The HALIDONMUSIC classical playlist for villains has been my go-to playlist for work followed by the trusty Lo-fi Girl (Halloween Edition 🎃) for seasonally appropriate ambience.

📺 What I’m Watching:

• Finished “The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting” which was okay but probably had the most toothless iteration of yakuza that I’ve seen in a while. For a similar storyline I definitely preferred “Buddy Daddies”.
• Started “Castlevania: Nocturne” and I am excited for the story but I already feel like it’s a bit rushed. I hope they are able to get more seasons going because the cast of characters are pretty interesting.

📚What I’m Studying:

• I am learning about web3 and the resulting terminology since my current part-time job requires knowledge of that field. It’s a bit tedious but I’m trying to enjoy the experience of simply learning something new.
• Lots and lots of vocabulary flashcards in preparation for JLPT N1 in December.

🎪 Miscellany:

• Went to my first themed cafe in a while, the Black Butler cafe since there will be a new season. Black Butler events usually go all-in on the aesthetic but this one was a bit lacking. The official art was still plenty cute though.

* Got my copy of Percy Jackson – The Chalice of the Gods and I’m excited to read this one. I am still a couple books behind with the final Trials of Apollo and The Sun and The Star left before this one to avoid any spoilers.

💻 Interesting Links:

• Largehearted Boy 🔗 https://largeheartedboy.com A blog that combines books and music. I particularly love looking through the author-curated playlists for books that I’ve read or are interested in reading.

• 🪦 The London Dead 🔗 https://thelondondead.blogspot.com/ A blog about various cemeteries and the histories behind their graves and monuments.

#weeknotes

1. The League of Lady Poisoners – Lisa Perrin: This was an absolutely gorgeous book! Illustrated by the author herself, it’s a wonderfully researched book that explores the lives and legacies of women poisoners throughout history. Each chapter is dedicated to the story of a different woman and while written in a fairly accessible and lighthearted tone, care is taken to humanize the people involved and shed light on the socioeconomic circumstances that made poison a strategic weapon of choice for many women who may have felt like they had no other options. There were so many women that I had never heard of before and the author points out how even in gruesome murders, factors like beauty, age, nationality and race often favored some over others. I definitely learned a lot! I received a digital ARC of this one but I would love to get my hands on a physical copy.

2. Atlantic’s Last Stop: Courage, Folly, and Lies in the White Star Line’s Worst Disaster Before Titanic – Bob Chaulk: I am a bit of an ocean liner nerd and I love learning about pre-WWII ships and shipwrecks in particular. I’ve been a Titanic ship nerd for most of my life but I’ve never read much about Atlantic, something that the author has set out to change. The book does a great job of breaking down all the moving parts involved in leading up to the tragedy, the disaster itself and the fallout afterwards. It’s extremely well researched and full of detail. My only issue was that since the book is largely divided into categories rather than chronology it sometimes requires a bit of mental reorientation to where in the timeline we are but that’s the tradeoff for the categorical organization which makes the book a great reference book. There is also a collaboration documentary with the Youtube channel Part-Time Explorer that gives an excellent visual so I recommend that as part of the reading experience.

3. Sanctuary with Kings (Tempting Monsters #3) – Kathryn Moon: This is the final book in the trilogy and one I had been looking forward to for a while. If I can wax poetic about monster romances for a moment, the best-written ones in my opinion are the ones that have strong themes of acceptance. This usually means wholehearted acceptance of bodies, genders, sexualities and anything else that can fall outside the norm. Kathryn Moon excels at this, constantly giving us protagonists with the capacity for lots of love and acceptance and translating that to relationships and sex. This time our protagonist is an immortal daughter of the goddess Hedone, kept in captivity by the antagonist Birsha at his pleasure houses for hundreds of years. She is able to escape and is able to begin the healing process. This book tackles a lot of heavy topics such as sexual slavery, depression, loneliness, suicidal ideation so it is much heavier than the other books. This is balanced well by the relationships and how all of the characters learn to love each other. This book leads up to the final battle and includes lots of characters from the previous books so it was a hefty read that did eventually drag in some places but still thoroughly enjoyable.

4. Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi: This was such a beautifully written, profound book and I learned so much. This book follows the lineage of two half sisters from Cape Coast Ghana; one who marries a white slaver and remains in Ghana and another who gets sold into slavery in America by that same slaver. Each chapter follows the next descendant of the previous person and alternates between the US and Ghana all the way to the present day. I was worried that this would make it hard to follow but everything weaves together so seamlessly and even when the characters themselves are unaware of who they are or where they come from, the readers are able to draw the line from the very beginning and see how we are shaped (or not) by the actions of those before us. As someone descended from slaves and indentured workers who can only trace my family history back to my great-great grandparents, getting to read a full ancestral history like this was both affirming and heartbreaking. This book says a lot about history, generational trauma, the choices we have (or don’t) and what it means to seek home. Highly recommended.

5. The King’s Spinster Bride (Royal Wedding Series #1) – Ruby Dixon: Although I spent a solid chunk of time reading the entire Ice Planet Barbarians series back in 2021 during an awful bout of anxiety and insomnia, Ruby Dixon’s books are hit or miss for me. If I can get into the series then they’re really good fluffy reads but this one was a bit too much fluff and not much of anything else for my taste. It’s quite short and sweet but the characters themselves didn’t leave any impression.

6. Heart, Haunt, Havoc (The Gideon Testaments #1) – Freydís Moon: I’m quite a fan of Freydís Moon’s writing and I was excited to read this. They are one of my favorites for dark romance and horror as they write very relatable morally grey characters and are able to treat sensitive topics like religion, depression, gender and sexuality with the appropriate respect and weight that allows the narratives to have lots of emotional impact. This is primarily a haunted house story which our main character Colin, an exorcist, is hired to cleanse of ghosts. Like all haunted house stories there is an additional layer of mystery along with lots of occult elements that felt well research and grounded and were very fun to read. The relationship between the main characters happened a bit too fast for me but that’s excused due to the length of the book. Otherwise I was fully invested in the characters themselves and the overall plot so I immediately started the second book.

7. Wolf, Willow, Witch (The Gideon Testaments #2) – Freydís Moon: For the second book we switch to Tehlor who appears in the first book and follow along with the aftermath of book one. This was just as enjoyable as the first and I think I enjoyed the narration a bit more due to Tehlor’s plucky personality. While the first book had more of a cozy horror feel due to the enclosed nature of a haunted house, this one had more of a heart-pounding thriller energy as the characters are forced to involved with a religious cult and the stakes are raised. Fair warning this ends on a cliffhanger so while I’m very invested, I will have to wait until book 3 next year to see how it ends.

8. 魔入りました！入間くん (Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun) – 西修 (Osamu Nishi) Volumes 10-13: I’m enjoying these so much and I’m happy to see that my Japanese reading speed has increased as a result. This series continues to both enrich and subvert classic shonen manga tropes in the most delightful of ways.

#reading #bookreviews #readingwrapup

🎲 Getting started with solo RPGs 🔗 https://soloist.substack.com/p/getting-started-with-solo-rpgs

• One of my goals is to write more but specifically through good old pen-and-paper journaling. On top of regular planning, commonplacing, tracking and the like, I also want to try solo journaling RPGs. This is something of a how-to for anyone absolutely new to this and gives links to various games to start with.

🐰 Koto by Flo 🔗 https://floriandcp.itch.io/koto

• I’ve been trying to get back into mini games and doing silly little things on silly little sites just for the heck of it and found this game on itch.io. You are a rabbit playing the koto. That’s all there is to it.

🎶 The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We 🔗 https://mitski.bandcamp.com/album/the-land-is-inhospitable-and-so-are-we

• Mitski’s new album is out and it’s been my go-to listen for journaling and also one of my favorite titles in a while. I pre-ordered the cassette which adds an extra distraction-free layer when writing.

🪨 Exploring ATLA 🔗 https://oneatlatime.tumblr.com/

• We rewatch Avatar the Last Airbender at least once a year because it continues to be one of the rare shows that is as close to perfect as you can get. This blog is by someone who someone managed to avoid seeing the show at all (!) and they’re blogging their first time experience. The posts are extremely detailed and thoughtful and it’s great to see if it holds up without the lens of nostalgia (it does).

#weeklinks

I have a terrible memory compounded by my adhd so keeping track of everything that I do/feel/think is absolutely essential in confirming my existence as a multifaceted human being and not just a single note of “whatever-is-happening-in-the-here-and-now”.

The additional layer of autism on my neurodivergent brain sandwich means that I tend to obsess over tracking things but I also get immense satisfaction in seeing data put together with all its fun trends and patterns.

Which brings me to reading.

A big part of reading is keeping track of what you read in some way. As a result, anyone who’s ever been a reader for more than 5 minutes on the internet has most likely heard of or used Goodreads at some point. This is the de facto method for all literary inclined folk to track their reading, leave reviews and engage in the bookish community.

I joined Goodreads as a teenager who had just discovered the YA genre via the Twilight boom and was amazed at the sheer numbers of books there were to be read. Not to mention the droves of people having wonderful gif-filled emphatic conversations about them.

After being on it for several years, my personal experience of the site was a TBR list of gargantuan proportions, ever increasing bookshelf tags (the thing to do at one point was express strong feelings through shelves entitled things like, “this-book-owns-my-soul” or “made-me-want-to-throw-up”), abandoned book clubs and a growing anxiety around meeting my yearly reading goal.

This was all self-inflicted of course but the annual Goodreads Reading Challenge never failed to make me feel like I was perpetually falling behind while everyone else somehow managed to read so much more.

I eventually deleted my account in large part to trying to support Amazon as little as possible, in small part to the realization that my TBR was impossible and I was spending more time looking for books to read than reading them and in tiny part to the secondhand embarrassment of seeing all the books my teen self considered the height of literature.

I recognize the hypocrisy in that I still sporadically use Kindle Unlimited to discover indie authors in the romance genre but it is what it is.

After leaving I became increasingly aware of what can be summed up as “Goodreads review drama” where the review sections of books become a platform for authors to bully reviewers, reviewers to bully authors and for reviewers to bully each other. There is an ongoing debate about whether authors should even read reviews of their work much less comment or offer public backlash if the review is not positive.

External reads:

Author Goes on a Viral Rant About Four Star Review “Ruining Her Average”

As someone who enjoys reviewing and recommending books I can easily imagine the added stress of wondering if a less than favorable review will make you a target from the author themself. On the flip-side and perhaps more damaging on a wider scale, many indie and marginalized authors have experienced having books that were not even released yet spammed with low ratings (called “review bombing”) which negatively affected their press and sales.

External reads:

How Extortion Scams and Review Bombing Trolls Turned Goodreads Into Many Authors’ Worst Nightmare

The Wrath of Goodreads

It’s a morbidly fascinating topic but either way, the growing consensus is that Goodreads has been largely abandoned by Amazon and is doing more harm than good for reading

External reads:

Goodreads Is Terrible for Books. Why Can’t We All Quit It?

I still needed to track everything I read so I switched to The Storygraph in 2019 which is billed as a more ethical, black-owned alternative to the Jeff Bezos Empire. The design of the site helped reduce the social media element to book reviews that permeates Goodreads and added an additional element of content/trigger warnings which could be added to a book by the readers after completing it.

The community aspect is still there too but hidden well enough that if you are someone who prefers simply tracking then that’s all you really need to do. I don’t think I’ve ever felt compelled to read reviews of a book on Storygraph before starting it. Overall, their stats are comprehensive and the team behind the site is open and responsive so new features get added regularly like buddy reads.

I enjoy and still highly recommend The Storygraph but finally made the choice a couple months ago to move all my reading stats to a personal Notion database.

The problem is that even with a less socially inclined site like The Storygraph I’m still far too easily influenced by what other people are reading. To be a bit dramatic, it’s that internet panopticon phenomenon and I find myself caring way too much about the optics (ha ha) of how I read. Even though the option of having a private account is there, just being able to see what other people are reading or what’s popular/not popular affects how and what I read.

In the back of my mind, I’m always wondering what my book lists and my shelves say about me as a reader. Am I starting the right challenges? Everyone’s talking about this one so should I bump it higher on my TBR? Did I read too many short books in a row? Can I count a comic book as reading? Posting on platforms like Instagram or blogs adds an extra element of the performative. Suddenly there’s the extra, “how do my books actually physically look?” Not to mention how it all stacks up to other people versus, just…you know…actually reading.

The linked article below says it best where:

There’s a desire stirring in our culture, both in reaction to the digitization of life and in line with the trendy factor that digital platforms foster, to be seen as someone who reads overshadowing the reading itself

- The Gamification of Reading Is Changing How We Approach Books

On top of that, book communities (especially for romance and fantasy fiction which I read the most of) still heavily favor books that feature characters who are white, able-bodied, cisgendered, heteronormative and young. Not that any of these denote a bad book but even with all of the wonderful work that has been done to mitigate it, we can still do more to promote diverse books.

Increasingly I’ve found myself extremely underwhelmed or disappointed by books that are constantly raved about in book circles so I’m making the effort to choose books based off of personal interest only and not simply because, “everyone is talking about this one” because eventually things become an echo chamber.

The shift to visual versus text platforms means that there is a constant push and demand for new or more books (what’s a single TBR book against a sexy, sexy bookstack) with the added consumerist pressure of gorgeous special editions and subscription book boxes. I love sprayed edges but these seem to be coming in faster and faster as everyone tries to build up the prettiest bookshelf. As someone with a limited book budget even on the best of days I wish that there were less special edition hardcovers and more paperbacks but the market is understandably skewing towards the former. With the rise in popularity of book annotations (which I personally love) there is also the precedent of owning the book in order to annotate them.

Maybe I’m just salty and poor but I wish a community that centered reading didn’t also focus so much on acquisition and if I’m not careful I fall into that trap.

The best part of switching to Notion is that I can no longer add books to my TBR list on autopilot. I am also not affected by the community rating of a book before I read it so I can start books with less expectations and hopefully a more organic reading experience. I see fewer books in general and so I feel less pressure to buy all of the new releases and can instead focus on saving for the ones that I really want.

I’m still learning to use all the available tools so this is fairly basic but my tracker so far uses multiple databases and two-way relations in order to populate the different categories like in each table like author or genre.

I also have a calendar to keep track of upcoming releases that I plan to purchase or borrow from the library. I’ve included a couple screenshots of my current setup and I fully acknowledge the irony of making a public post about choosing to make my reading private…

It is more work and not as snappy but since everything is manual, it has forced me to spend a bit more time with the books that I read and the books that I want to read which I hope makes for more intentional consumption.

#reading

I’d like to include that on a weekly basis so here goes ✨

📓 Small Web – Kagi 🔗 https://kagi.com/smallweb

• I suspect that most of my links will be coming from here so it gets an honorable first mention. In moving away from social media I’ve been trying to find more longform blogs and this has been a great resource. It feels like StumbleUpon back in the good old days but with less customization and that’s okay. It’s kinda nice to just be thrown around random blogs and see who/what I find. Kagi means to be a premium ad-free search engine which sounds like an interesting concept. I’ve only tried the free tier so far but judging by their fantastic Small Web service I am hopeful.

📓 Edgar Allan Poe Library 🔗 https://nevermore.rip/

• An ad-free site that lists the author’s works in a very easy to read format.

📓 Old Salt Blog 🔗 https://www.oldsaltblog.com/

• I love boats and ships and this is a great resource of boat-related news from all over.

📓 Author Pronunciation by BookBrowse 🔗 https://www.bookbrowse.com/authors/author_pronunciations/

• A good resource for anyone worried about mispronouncing the names of their favorite authors!

📓 #31SpookyStories October Reading Challenge by Notebook of Ghosts 🔗 https://notebookofghosts.com/2023/09/21/31spookystories-october-2023-reading-challenge/

• One of my favorite blogs for folklore that does a spooky reading challenge every October. A good place to start for anyone wanting to add a bit of horror to their reading. Plus the templates are adorable 👻🖤

#weeklinks

I’ve already started to implement some of these from the beginning of September and throughout the coming months leading up to 2024 I will be reflecting and adjusting based on what I’ve noticed so far. That way I can start the year with a strong base.

A big chunk of these rules were inspired by Reddit user awrighter200 from the NoBuy subreddit who has been posting a wonderfully detailed writeup of every month of their challenge since the beginning of the year. Their first post is here for reference.

Reasons to do this challenge:

• Build up emergency funds
• Repay credit card
• Save for braces
• Start investing
• Learn to use (up) what I already have
• Spend less time window shopping and surfing mindlessly
• Be more grateful and appreciate current belongings
• Encourage creativity, DIY and finding free alternatives

Rules

1. Limited to 48 non-essential purchases for the year or 4 per month.

2. Items must be decided on at least a month before purchase.

   1. As much as possible, try to find them secondhand before buying new.

3. Books:

   1. Read 5 physical books/manga or 10 owned ebooks before buying one new copy of either.

   2. Use Libby as much as possible.

4. Yarn and craft:

   1. Complete 3 projects with available supplies before buying new materials.

5. Log all purchases in journal as well as my reason for buying.

6. Log completed craft projects, used up items and finished books.

7. Reflect at the end of the month on my thoughts and feelings about the challenge.

8. Adjust as needed.

#personal #productivity #lowbuy #challenge

I accepted that my not being able to afford things is largely in part to these things being too expensive (often exploitatively overpriced) and not because I don’t have enough money.

Maybe this feels painfully obvious but I’m someone who needs to come to painfully obvious conclusions on my own before it can sink in.

I am nowhere near rich nor have I ever been but I’ve always had enough money to manage rent, groceries and most of my bills. Some months were harder than others and I’ve depended on the assistance from loved ones many times but I’ve managed and that’s something I am grateful for.

In general I’ve always tried to have an emergency fund as my health is prone to failing and I’m trying to save for braces. I have always set savings goals but time and again I would find myself dipping into those savings for things that didn’t remotely qualify as emergencies: outings, event tickets, books, clothes, shoes etc.

It didn’t help that I spent more time than most as a student so most of my friends and peers had more time working full time to build up their own savings and lifestyles that I felt that I needed to be able to keep up with.

I always thought that not being able to afford these things was somehow a personal failure. One that could only be made up by stretching beyond my budget. Then the subsequent post-payday brokeness would hit and it would be my fault again for being bad at budgeting. That’s a lie as I’m actually a decent budgeter and the message than everyone can and should budget is valuable. What I needed to examine beyond my budget was my response to marketing.

At this point in late-stage capitalism, we all know how predatory and prevalent advertising is and can spot the signs. Even with that knowledge and practiced awareness of the shittiness of capitalism I still constantly carried around the idea that I could buy my best self if only I had just a tiny bit more money.

This was a long-winded way to say that I came to a similar realization with the way I’ve been using the internet and social media in particular. For a while I chalked up my dissatisfaction with being online to a personal failure. With Instagram for example, even though I’ve seen the way it’s become a tool for advertisers that only rewards people willing to try and appease the algorithm, I still felt that my lack of desire to use it was personal failing. Maybe if a started a fresh account or made separate accounts for each hobby or used hashtags a bit better or tried a new way of posting or interacted with more accounts or had more to say etc etc. Maybe after bending and twisting myself I’d finally feel like I had enough to share and be interesting on these platforms because everyone else is managing it somehow and I genuinely hate to be left out.

I realize now that I have enough to say but the nature of current social media and algorithms are to constantly demand more more more and that’s not on me. It’s fine if others can keep up but I’m making a more conscious effort to step back.

This is not my first attempt at slower internet use and over the past year I’ve made a Wordpress account for book blogging and switched to Tumblr for more social/casual posting but even then it still feels like there’s too much noise and I end up caring more about numbers than I’d like to. There’s still the chance of something going viral on Tumblr (never a good thing) and it’s bogged down with bots and restrictions that caused previous exoduses in the past. It doesn’t help that the staff at Tumblr seem keen to take advantage of the recent migrations from Twitter and Reddit to make the site more like the former which is not what anyone is asking for.

In preparation for 2024 I am challenging both a no/low buy as well as slower more meaningful internet consumption in the hopes that I will learn to recognize what is enough and avoid the pitfalls of thinking that I need to constantly do/be/buy more.

#personal #socialmedia #productivity