inquiry

The last couple days have been some of the happiest of my online life.

Because I wasn't. (online, that is)

Well, mostly...

Others here recently typed of the likes of refraining from online news, from looking at their posting “stats”, etc.

And I thought, “Hmmm....”.

So apart from reading read.write.as posts, email with a couple cherished correspondents, writing an occasional write.as post, and necessary financial matters, I'm done with the happy horseshit also known as <hollow thunderclaps and bottom of the oatmeal container percussive rolls> The Internet.

Of course, going that far makes me wonder about additional room for improvement.

For example, could I go back to snail mail with the cherished correspondents? Isn't that a far more pleasurable – and, arguably, biological – pace?

Are read.write.as posts really “all that”, or simply a habit that, due to easy familiarity, somehow appear closer than they are? (yes, in that old automotive, external rear view mirror sense)

And, of course, posting here has been mostly an exercise in futility. Surely I could set up a blogging mechanism on this machine of mine that pretends to have other silent-to-me participants, and post my junk there. Wouldn't that amount to the same magnitude of sense of not belonging?

The financial stuff, well, those companies are likely still able and willing to do things the snail mail way.

I don't have any big secrets in email, so I really ought to stop paying for it, go back to something free, and not give a shit who's stealing my information. What do I care if people are stealing the boring details of my rather ordinary life?

And why am I paying for a VPN when it sounds like the one I'm with has been sold to an organization allegedly known for being disreputable?

It's all gone to shit hell.

And why?

Because (and I'm really liking this take on an old word): e-go.

Yep.

That's where ego goes electronic, wreaking the usual havoc (but in hexadecimal places), mucking with things for its own benefit to the point that others have to jump through endless, multi-step authentication hoops to enjoy what was once so easy, etc., etc.....

'E-go' basically refers to the ongoing, ever increasing presence of a marauding hoard whose earliest ancestors arrived on these shores in what is called The Eternal September.

(I want to say that those who designed all this suffer from the same malady that liberal/progressive-ish types too often do, namely vastly underestimating the inner stink of a typical human being, thereby creating systems (including of government) that of course couldn't possibly work for presupposing benevolent beings that this world clearly – and on a frighteningly frequently basis – demonstrates rarely – if ever – exist.)

But (going back to the early parts of this post), I'm happy to report that the effects of simply not regularly seeking news headlines alone were/are peace-of-mind-fully palpable....