I haven't been in a good place mentally or emotionally the past several weeks. In most of my free time I played video games or watched TV and had no desire to do much of anything else. Aside from alternating feelings of anxiousness and guilt, I felt mostly numb.
I'm half-way through a two-week news and social media fast. It's going just as I had hoped it would.
I've decided to end the experiment I started a month ago and stop running my own Mastodon instance.
Someone in a Discord server I'm on forced me to look in a metaphorical mirror and made me realize how news and social media have negatively impacted my objectivity and mental health in recent weeks.
Spoilers ahead!
I'm currently obsessed with the Star Wars TV series Andor. Writing, directing, acting, cinematography, music, story – all brilliant. It resonates with me on many levels. I'm watching the first season for the second time and paying close attention. In Episode 7, Announcement, a conversation between Andor and Maarva got me thinking.
My brother (who is younger than me) has never used big social media.
I make a distinction between big and small social media.
I guess technically my brother does have a LinkedIn account that he uses as an online resumé, not as a social network. But Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Nope. Nada.
I have to say, I envy him in that regard.
Getting a new shared Mastodon instance going is a lot of work! I've put in a lot of hours the past couple days on getting ZCMI.social off the ground. It's not just the technical side of things with domain, hosting, and administration – there is a lot more to it.
It's been a whirlwind weekend, but I somehow started a new Mastodon instance! ZCMI.social is now a thing.
Occasionally over the past couple years, I've thought about starting a Mastodon instance for members of my church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Back in January I wrote Why I Use Librem Social. Librem Social is a social media network that is based on a fork of Mastodon. About a month after I wrote that, I decided to migrate to a different instance. Fosstodon is where I landed and I've quite enjoyed my experience there.