I am Glad We Disagree
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A friend told me about militant vegans. How they make everyone feel bad from their moral high ground. I used to be one. With friends who thought the same, it was easy. I spent hours using philosophical jiu-jitsu to convert people.
Then I wondered - does this actually help? Some googling and talking showed me the truth. My veganism barely dents the system. The factory farms keep running either way. So I dropped the crusade.
Some days, Tom speaks about fighting battles we know we'll lose. Like his quest to end all suffering in our world, human and non-human alike. We lose this battle every single day, he and I. Yet we keep fighting, because we must.
Another battle worth fighting is against life's suboptimal parts. And oh, how suboptimal the internet has become. The endless ads, mind-numbing short-form content, waves of misinformation - it's exhausting. I dream of a more wholesome internet. One where I can simply read my friends' thoughts without ads force-fed into my consciousness. Where disagreements with strangers can unfold with nuance and empathy. This version of the internet - this is worth fighting for. And so I joined Bluesky.
Friends are sharing more writing online these days. This brings me joy - I fully support them putting their words into the world. Reading about their lives feels like keeping them close, since I rarely see a lot of them anymore. This has me reflecting on my own internet writing habits.
At seventeen, I launched my first blog called "Keeping Pace." I gave it the tagline: "Helping your life become 1% better." How ambitious of me! My anxious teenage mind found comfort in self-help books. I started echoing those ideas to other seventeen-year-olds.