A few weeks ago my host emailed me that for some reason google bot was hitting my site so much that it slowed down the entire server – since it was affecting other people they had to stop google bot from crawling my site.
I thought about trying to fix it for a while, but then I thought it wasn’t so bad if my site became unsearchable. My site could just exist through rss, mastodon, instagram, and the generosity of the occasional link from other people’s sites. There have been times when I don’t even feel like posting on whatever social networks I am still on. I still do instagram because my non-tech-inclined connections are there, and let’s be honest: mastodon is just too confusing for the mainstream.
I am also uninterested in joining new social networks like bluesky or threads, even if my entire social graph is now on those places. I am tired of what they make us go through. A change of ownership, a change of product direction, a change of principles – all of a sudden we can no longer each other’s posts, because the algorithm favours trends.
This is the extreme opposite of my younger self. I was always the early adopter, and I like signing up on new social networks so I can secure my username. I no longer care about that either.
It is a pity about the google search thing because fellow covid cautious people were finding my open-air dining posts through google. It would be nice for them to know that there are still people like me. I guess this is also a cautionary tale about the disproportionate power of google. Suddenly, almost our entire internet presence can be wiped out.
Perhaps it is not so bad if I become part of the secret web. If you know, you know.
I guess this smallness also applies to my physical life. I don’t have much of a social life these days – it started because of covid cautiousness, but I am now used to this. I am just contented to share my life with my partner, but I think without her I would still remain in my own company. I just don’t have much space in my self to accommodate other people, and I don’t know why but I don’t have much social needs either. Writing on this blog and having a small presence on some social networks is my way of being social. They allow me to disconnect whenever necessary. I enjoy receiving messages and comments online, so to an extent I still like interacting with people.
Maybe part of it is because I have sensory difficulties which has become more apparent to me ever since I started considering myself as autistic. Verbal communication exhausts me – it has always exhausted me, that is why even when I was a freelancer I preferred email. (Which is the opposite of most people – communication norms have changed but in my time people liked picking up the phone whenever they can over written communication.) Video calls exhaust me too – I always have to strain to listen to people, and prolonged calls are a migraine trigger. I need subtitles when watching tv.
I think it is nice that I have reached the level of self-acceptance where I no longer feel shame or indignation about my peculiarities. This is what it is, and I am glad I have done the work of trying to know myself enough so I can stop making my self be like the fish who kept trying to climb a tree.
My world has probably become a lot smaller because of the smallness of both my online and offline presences. But part of it is also larger in other ways, because I now have the energy to explore it in ways I can and want to.
The point is not whether small or large is better, but it is important to know which we prefer. It is very easy to get swept up by mainstream currents because no matter how hermit-ish we become, we are still susceptible to social pressure. It is a survival mechanism. But I envy people who truly exists as themselves and they feel zero sensitivity about social judgment (and not harming anyone around them). I used to believe I need a lot of friends or I needed to write posts that could go viral (yes I was once like that). But now I feel a certain sense of enrichment and peace in my little world. There are other things to notice and listen to, that are not human voices.
I could prefer the sound of swaying trees, or even the sound of silence. I prefer reading online longform and shortform posts to talking. Reading your posts allow me to know and understand you way more than a conversation ever does, or at least for me. How many people can truly listen to what we have to say and understand what we actually mean, and how many of us are capable of saying what we actually want to say, and say what we actually mean? How much of a verbal conversation are interruptions, digressions, monologues, or not actually even on the same wavelength?
I guess maybe I am just the weird one. And if so, how can I construct a life that is liveable for me instead of my entire life just forcing myself to adhere to social norms?
Sometimes smallness is a necessity for some people, because it is simply too exhausting otherwise.