A “Shocking” Revelation of Why I’m MIA

Disclaimers

I’m not even Mia.

Mia is my dumb smartphone. But not even she is a Mia really. (Why, yes, of course I personalise and gender my phone.) My phone is a Xiaomi. That’s an actual brand. And since she’s called Xiaomi by the factory, I didn’t want to confuse her and so I called her Mia.

Mia is also my cat. No, not really. My cat is a tabby by default and an Ella by name, but since she goes miaow, I call her Mia sometimes.

But I’m not a Mia in any way. Except for one. I’m MIA. As in Missing in Action. As in not blogging. Why would I do it? I wouldn’t know. Until today when I was struck by a striking epiphany. (Which is a dumb thing to say because an epiphany is always striking by definition.) But before I expose myself (I mean, before I reveal my revelation to you as well), more disclaimers.

The shocking revelation is not shocking.

Neither shocking, nor revealing, if you must know. It is arguable whether it is anything at all. That will largely depend on which school of philosophical thought you subscribe to. I subscribe to nothing, so my revelation is not a thing to me. Neither is it a thought, since it’s obviously thoughtless. It’s also mindless because I have nothing on my mind.

Enough.

Non-shocking Non-revelation

I don’t have fucking time!

You didn’t see that coming, right? Seriously though. Consider it, since I’m so inconsiderate that you have to do so on my behalf. My blogging started its downward spiral when I started my own downward spiral when I started freelancing when I finished my half-life-long studies when I divorced (shock) and moved (twice) and when etcetera. That’s all obviously quite time-consuming, no? (I’m not asking, I’m saying.)

About the same time, also WordPress started its downward spiral. Since WordPress abolished all community features and challenges, I have not only zero will to live (unrelated to WordPress, I assume, although… hmm) but also zero will to blog. Because there’s zero stimulus. No more getting a catchword in a photo challenge, whipping up a crappy phone pic in response and call it a post.

But mostly, I don’t have time. Fucking time. It never occurred to me until today. Like I really don’t have time. I’m obviously doing something wrong. Possibly everything. There’s also likely something wrong with me, which is somewhat corroborated by my psychiatric diagnoses.

The Idea, the Point and the Moral

You didn’t fall for it, right?

I mean, you didn’t actually expect there to be an idea, a point and a moral in a threesome? I’m clearly idea-less, possibly point-less (even moral-less, since you mention it). So the idea is that I’m out of ideas. I sort of depressed myself by this ridiculous excuse of a blog post. I guess the moral should then be that I should be working. Or something.

WordPress Reinvents Gutenberg and I Can’t—

WordPress invented the printing press for the post-printing age. They called it Gutenberg, thus positively impacting people’s factual knowledge in the post-factual age, while adversely impacting search trends on Google. Every idiot is searching for keyword Gutenberg and the more enlightened ones for phrase whats the difference between gutenberg and hewlett packard. Apart from circa half a millennium, none.

As for me, who was brought up at the height of the trivia age (aka let’s-see-how-much-encyclopaedic-facts-we-can-input-in-a-schoolkid’s-head-before-it-implodes age), I have a more interesting question. What’s the difference between Gutenberg à la WordPress and Shakespeare? Apart from a few random centuries, none. Both are much ado about nothing. Also, I tend to disapprove of both of them, while everyone else seems to be shitting themselves with enthusiasm, and I’m thinking what the heck I’m missing.

What is this thing, then, this Gutenberg by WordPress? Well. Since we’re on the literary note, let me whip up a simile (worry not, that’s the shit that is easier than the metaphor, or even the oxymoron). Just as WordPress allows you to make a website without actually knowing how to code, so Gutenberg allows you to produce content without knowing how to write. Okay. I might be exaggerating, but not much. Gutenberg is a kind of an upgraded visual editor. Like Word is an upgraded Notepad.

This may or may not be my make-up (see below for [ir]relevance)

I have literally (not to be confused with literary) no idea (I could just as well finish the sentence here, right?)—no idea what my problem with visual editors is. A childhood trauma, perhaps? Hardly, unless my traumatising encounters with MS Dos count. (To my schoolteacher of IT, who never graded me better than a B: Dude, wanna see my latest bit of JavaScript? Or my new CSS tricks? You know, I happen to be a coder now. So fuck you, in yer face. [Not literally, please.])

I love new stuff and shit that makes other shit easier. I’m not the fashionable weirdo who bakes her own bread though she can buy it courtesy of the supermarket. I suspect I’ve had too much experience with visual editors not doing their one job and me ending up just coding the job, which, as it happened, was more efficient on all fronts. Whenever I hear visual builder, I’m getting measles. I’m kidding. I’m not getting measles at any time because my mother wasn’t a militant bio-mother, so I’m fully vaccinated.

I’m not sure whether the vaccine is the reason I’m semi-autistic. Maybe I was born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline. It could be Rimmel, too. But not Sephora. I’m not a Sephora person. I know a person who is a Sephora person, which is why I researched what the fuck. It appears that Sephora sells overpriced make-up to those dumb enough to buy it. Which didn’t really answer my what the fuck question. I wear make-up once a week at most (not coincidentally, it coincides with the equally rare occasions when I leave the flat), and so I’m still wearing the glossy red lip gloss I bought five years ago.

Glossy lip gloss is no more fashionable, I hear (and deem it irrelevant), but I no more like it. Trouble is, as is the case with all things you don’t like any more, that the product is bottomless. I assume it’s also past its expiry date; fortunately, I don’t believe in expiry dates. Nothing but propaganda. I shall keep on using and/or eating any expired thing until it manifests highly visible signs of mould which I evaluate as severe enough to justify throwing the shit out. Don’t even try to argue with me. See above for post-factual age. You’re welcome.

On Blogkeeping and Changes

The only change that doesn’t change is change. Duh.

I’ve been up to no good, as always when I’m up to something. In the unlikely scenario that you’re a professional stalker and stalk me proficiently, you would have noticed a few months ago that I went sort of off-the-grid. Not because it’s fashionable and the internet is full of it—see the irony? how can you report your off-grid experience when you’re off-the-grid, huh?—but because I woke up one day with the excellent idea to remove myself off of the face of the earth. (Is there any linguist or language user who would explain to me how to use off of? Or is it of off? Does it even make any sense, language-economy-wise?)

This time, I wasn’t thinking of a literal removal of my person from among the living—though it is indeed my favourite image to dwell upon—but a partial removal of my online persona from among the asocial people who socialise online. I’m kidding, as per usual. Or am I? In any case, in a rare moment of deployment of common sense, it occurred to me that since I’m not using the gazillion social media I senselessly subscribed to, I could just as well delete my accounts. Following this logic, I killed myself on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Blogloving, Vine (the latter was a step ahead and had killed itself before I did) and probably elsewhere I don’t even remember now.

My blog in 2014 according to the WayBack Machine,  which is terribly wrong about the design

I only kept this blog—should you wonder whether I kept the blog that you’re currently reading, you know—and my Instagram, both of which I hardly use anyway, but anyway. My point is that if you happened to notice me having disappeared, it’s not you—neither is it me; it is what it is. (I understand that a point should be deep, hence the populist and Buddhist crap respectively.) My killing spree also affected the blog as I took down some images that I in retrospect evaluated as too revealing. Keep your pants on, I don’t mean revealing in the good way, as in nudes, but in the indifferent way, as in showing too much of my real-life person, as opposed to my blogging persona.

Please don’t refute this point by arguing that I don’t have a life, less so a real life. I’m aware of this fallacy. Also, no need to point out that once shit gets on the internet, shit gets real; in other words, once online, always online. I’m aware of that, too. My message here is that you may see some images on the blog that you can’t see. See? As in the classic rectangular outline with no content but a cross in it and a message that the image can’t be displayed. Duh. As to the thought of preserving my blog for posterity—though I don’t intend to multiply, so I won’t produce any posterity of my own—the WayBack Machine does this job. Even if poorly, as you can see in the snapshot of my blog from four years ago.

WordPress’s Daily Post Quits—Now What?

In case you haven’t heard yet, the Daily Post is a goner. It bothers me more than it should. As we say in the second world, it’s not like bread is gonna be cheaper for that, so why care. As I hear is legit in the first world, though, one has the privilege to rant about things. Let’s do this!

Stages of Grief

I’ve gone through the five stages of grief regarding the Daily Post’s demise.

1. Denial (“What? Nooo—!!!”)
2. Anger (“Losers! Quitters! Traitors! Class enemies!” — Please note that “class enemy” is a cultural thing and it’s a bad thing to be. The worst, actually.)
3. Bargaining (“How hard is it to keep the thing running, huh? As Ben admits in his post on the Daily Post, WordPress servers shall be chugging along for the next 14,320,078 years, so come on!”)
4. Depression (“Can’t even…”)
5. Acceptance (“As you wish.” — That means I strongly disagree with you but currently can’t think of any means to bring you to senses.)

I even added an extra stage, just for the fun of grieving.

1. Resistance (“You won’t take responsibility? Fine. I’ll take it myself. In yer face.”)

Random picture

Stages of Feelings

I notoriously suck at connecting with my feelings because I read on Freud’s virtues of repression in an impressionable age and it stuck. I perfected the art of not admitting to feeling anything to the point of actually not feeling anything. That is, besides a single uniform formless emotion, whose name I don’t know but which is dull and depressing. I think it’s a constant lack of will to live. Is that an emotion? I need to practise naming emotions, so let’s identify how I feel about the Daily Post’s decease.

1. Disappointment — I was dumb enough to form some expectations and to believe that at least over at WordPress, everything will be as it should be. That’s disappointing on so many levels. (Which I’m too lazy to describe, so trust me—and you shall be betrayed! See below.)
2. Betrayal — Well, I didn’t sign up for this. For WordPress quitting on me.
3. Guilt — I should have had more sense than to be trustful and end up cheated, so serve me just right.
4. Anger — I was totally triggered by the mention of the discontinuation of the Daily Post being “a hard decision” in the post bringing this news. Saying “a hard decision” means avoiding telling the real reason.
5. Loss of faith in humanity — See above. I wonder what the real reason for this “hard decision” was. Kidding, I don’t wonder, we live in a capitalist society (even me), so it’s an easy guess.
6. Affirmation — The Daily Post challenges kept me blogging and connected with the world when I was too depressed and/or busy to even—  But we’re ultimately all alone, so it’s up to me to do shit. You know, like to blog about it. Incidentally, I just did that.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Place

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Place.

This could be anywhere. Or could it? It’s not anywhere anyway. It’s Eastern Europe. Not eastern Europe with a lower-case e as a geographical region, but Eastern Europe capitalised as a former political unit (aka Eastern Bloc), which still retains its sociocultural characteristics today. Why should you care? Oh, you shouldn’t! Unless you’re into places in the middle of nowhere. That’s where my place is. Nowhere. I’m saying, not complaining.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Unlikely

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Unlikely.

Most unlikely things happen in airport hotel diners. Such as me finding myself in one.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lines

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Lines.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Prolific

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Prolific.

The prompt prolific can be interpreted as pro-life. It’s in there: pro-lific and pro-life. Looks like these two might have something in common, right?

I’m not speaking of pro-life in the sense of anti-abortion—let’s not even look in that direction. It’s pro-life more in the sense of obsessively bringing things to life. Regardless of whether said things wish to be alive in the first place or would rather choose not to.

Spring is a quintessentially prolific season, hence my tulip photo. I never post tulips while omitting to quote my pet poet Sylvia Plath. I think I get her, or she gets me, whichever way you put it. She wasn’t particularly pro-life, which we have in common, as manifested by her choice to quit and put her head in the oven. And since we live in an age when you can’t say anything without offending someone, please let it be recorded that I’m not pro-suicide. Which is quite a feat, for a suicidal person.

But now, rest your eyes on the tulips and consider how they feel. That’s how tulips feel to Plath:

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.

Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.

They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,

Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color,

A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Awakening

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Awakening.

Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.
—Louis MacNeice

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Smile (if You Can)

In response to WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Smile.

I colour. Colour is used as a verb here. I do not identify myself with colour, as in I am a colour. Though, if I were a colour, I’d totally be pitch-black.