Rationing Social Media

It seems rational to ration. And this is the week I will start doing it, or already have.  Reddit is on hiatus even though I like responding to r/Judaism.  Twitter is utterly toxic, nobodies gathering around celebrities that would walk the other way in person.  A pool of ignorami.  Bari Weiss' Common Sense I've limited to my response to what she posts as the daily read, one time, ask that comments on my comment after the first two not come to my email.  And I do not engage in virtual conversations with other responders. KevinMD I try to respond twice a week.  Thoughtful articles, thoughtful feedback. 

That leaves me to control the ultimate time sink FB.  It shouldn't be as difficult as it has been.  Most of the connections I value most have disappeared, presumably by an algorithm that placed ads for some schmutz that I neither need nor want ahead of the people I'm happy I was able to reconnect to from now a half century back.  Not a lot of thought is exchanged.  Birthday greetings, condolences, a goot shabbos.  But little thought and with the people I'd most like to have lunch with in person screened out either electronically or by their preference.  The fun of the first few years has long since waned.  When I announced that I might like to go to Florida soon, nobody in Florida seemed eager to meet me there for real.  It's because FB in the end, isn't real.

Having done this a few days, successful for all but FB, I think I can limit my access or at least my response when I have access.  One more challenge.

Fluid Day

One of those fluid days, literally and figuratively.  Sipping my second cup of herb tea, one of the varietals that has a more inviting picture on the box than taste.  Spiced cider earlier today.  Reached my daily three cup ration of coffee long before it could affect my sleep.  Maybe some sherry before dinner.  And a beverage of some type with shabbos dinner, at least kiddush wine.

As of this morning I had no appointments other than having dinner ready before candle lighting, an easy task with all dinner defrosted and microwave suitable, except the broccoli crown.

An enticing AJC seminar came my way, following a similar themed The Forward seminar last night on addressing the robust presence of antisemitism on the internet.  My professional writing has to go through an editor.  I cannot just submit something to a print or broadcast publication and demand its appearance, though forums like my blog do not have a barrier to deter their appearance in cyberspace.  Eventually the online platforms will either need better accountability for what appears there, much like broadcast media's enforceable standards or they will need to be broken up by anti-trust law, which may have an undesired consequence of their competing with each other to see who is most accepting of submissions they receive.  At the very least, a regulatory agency and regulatory laws have to emerge.  Nobody addressed the elephant in the room, the use of these platforms by sovereign foreign governments to disrupt America.  You can negotiate a solution, but ultimately a credible threat of the military protecting American interests affirms that we mean business on this.

I had intended to do my writing and thinking today.  Medscape topic selected a month ago, a difficult one.  Did some of the background reading and pretty much decided how to package and present my essay.  KevinMD was a little harder.  Three false starts on Consult Maven. 

My medical subjects could include my alma mater's establishment of a business ethics program with a Sugar Daddy to support it.  This would mandate its inclusion in the curriculum starting with the first year.  We had such a project called Community Medicine which, while well intentioned, diverted us from the hard science that dominates early medical school.  It was obvious to us that the requirement was imposed by somebody who had the means to impose it, not because it was essential to study at that stage of training in the format offered.  I suspect the same now with the Business Ethics initiative, more predicated on its availability and authority of its funding source than its essential nature.  It is a very important issue, though, one that impacts every physician from medical school through retirement. My entries into the blog rambled in thought.  I could restrict the focus better, finish the blog entry, and repackage the thoughts for KevinMD.  Aborted effort on how Covid-19 effectively diverted endless essays about how badly our employers treat their physicians or autonomy lost to more noble subjects that make our obligations to our patients worth the travails of our EHRs, intrusive administrators, and burnout.  I scrolled back to pre-Covid KevinMD publications.  To my surprise, the focus on our professional troubles had seemed to be on the wane before Covid-19 captured the American medical conversation.  Finally, I settled on something separate from Covid, but an unsaid part of medicine, the lack of pricing transparency.  We all know the stories of insane itemized markups and providers and payers who concur that it is too disruptive to fix.  A TED talk from a journalist who compiles real pricing information from real patients documents the lunacy.  Whether the cure is worse than the condition makes for a good discussion.  Put in Consult Maven first, then repackage.  This one seems to be going well.

Was hoping to do more around the house but haven't.  And I still want to get my monthly Jewish donation to its destination before shabbos.

They Reappeared

Our social media blends a great resource for connecting to people with a toxic environment that has generated much public comment.  I've divorced myself from Sermo in toto.  My exploration of Twitter, which gives me access to some of the finest minds and most accomplished people, though typically as one of a quarter million followers, also immerses me with some people I'd try to avoid in person.  These do not let me choose my interactive partners.  For the same reason, I no longer read any responses to any of my public comments via Disqus, except from KevinMD where there is more of a professional bond between the participants.  

By far the largest platform, and the one dearest to me, has been Facebook.  My identified friends number less than 100.  I value it mostly to maintain contact with childhood acquaintances, some real friends, some who I've gotten to know better electronically.  To this day, I have never unfriended anyone I met through Ramapo Central School District #2.  Indeed, I have only ever unfriended one person who I knew personally, though a few who indirectly sought me out and pitched their political hardballs with too many curves.  I have declared people unwelcome, sometime in the form of a 30 day snooze but in a few circumstances, usually for being intrusive or of excessive sloganeering in lieu of the cognitive skills that our teachers aspired us to have, through the Unfollow option.  Not many, but not zero either.

I expect Facebook to respect my choice and not ask me to share my reason.  In fact, I really need no reason, though the reason is invariably annoyance to me and a more ethical one of not wanting to be induced to think of anyone I know in a deprecating way.  Alas, this week, two of the members of Unfollow Harem reappeared with the same types of initiated posts that prompted my initial opt-out of them decision.  The original action took a series of repetitively unwelcome communications, at least a dozen over short time interval.  And sometimes after failure of a snooze option to make me less sensitive to what I receive.  But once a well-considered unilateral Unfollow, which I have the capacity to reverse at any time, gets selected, my intent is permanent.

As the three notices from two individuals, with basically the same screeches that prompted my original action reappeared, my reaction was again to confirm another Unfollow.  I was not given that option.  As a solitary member among a billion or so global Facebook subscribers, I really don't have a way of fighting Facebook's City Hall or its algorithms.  I do have Unfriend, which seems an assault on my own level of tolerance, but I am adamant about remaining the master of my participation in modern social connectedness.

Squalls

Had been planning the third of my three day trips for a while, a round trip bus ride to NYC where I would take the subway to the Cloisters, where I had never been.  It was tentatively scheduled for yesterday but snow squalls here and there made a later time more suitable.  I can deal with cold, walking a half mile from the subway stop to the museum and back as well as the Chinatown bus to the subway makes precipitation justification not to travel.  Instead, I got my car serviced, loafed, read, took a hot shower, worked on Thanksgiving menu for fewer people than originally anticipated and made a little pest of myself commenting on www.kevinmd.com  I did not watch television, after scrolling through a hundred channels and finding none worthy of my attention.  One less screen.  Work on less computer screen too.

Staying Upright

Having retired three months ago, my days are now unstructured and I can largely do what I like when I like.  And I've been productive, submitting articles, cleaning the house, indulging in my fondness for cooking and pursuing a thus far unsuccessful quest to catch a fish in a nearby pond.  I can also head off to one of our two sofas or to bed and lie down pretty much any time I want.  This has gotten out of hand with zero days avoiding the horizontal posture.  I can be productive when supine.  Reading goes well.  Screen time with a hand held tablet can add to some projects while destroying others.  I have a Torah read coming up that needs polishing.  Easy to work on that with the photocopied portion while lying down.  However, there are also things I should be working on, my twelve personal initiatives for the second half of 2018 set a few months back, that would proceed better if I did not have the supine at will option. 

Yesterday, for the first time since retiring, I committed myself to not lying down from the time I first arose until 9PM, and kept that pledge to myself.  Indeed, I did a lot of things during those waking hours.  I also had to force myself out of the house even if to go to a store, in order to escape the lure of the couch.  Milchig dishes done.  I made brownies.  Got some more bagels from Trader Joe's.  Surfed some other people's blogs for inspiration in further developing my own.  Read some newspaper.  Rid the study of papers.  Cleared the surface of my downstairs desk.  Read some more Bowling Alone.  Responded to some Facebook postings.  Responded in a substantial way to a KevinMD article.  Did a load of laundry.  Made supper.   Many are chores that eventually would have been done anyway, but a few get me ahead.

This took a little physical demand, as it is not what I am used to.  I didn't tire but could tell that I would rather not be walking around an outdoor shopping center in the drizzle in mid-afternoon.  And I kept entirely to myself. 

Stay upright again today, though a little sleep deprived surfing through last night's election returns.  And make some effort to not be quite as solitary, the other feature of my retirement.