People don’t treat each other the same on social media as they do in real life. That’s one of the many reasons I quit facebook a little over a year ago. Also, I couldn’t stand the hatefulness of all the terrible people in this world shoved in my face all day. In all my helplessness, I had to look away. Some might say that I’d buried my head in the sand, that I’d ignored the real problems of the world by deactivating my account and refusing to read the news. To some degree they’re right, but here’s the thing; I know about all the hate that exists in the world. I’m aware of the level of government corruption that’s going on. I’ve seen the ugly head of racism so strong, that it felt like the air had gone out of the room. I know all these things are going on, but I have no idea how to change it. I don’t have an answer that I can gather clear enough to write on paper with this writer’s pen. Because the story always tends to the negative, and I can’t find a way out that’s not just heading to bottom and hoping for an answer there.

So here we go…

We live in the time of the apocalypse wind. Air, like a hot breath from God’s own corpse, full of dust and sand so dry, that only the most foul and terrible of creatures can survive here.  It’s here that we serve sushi – raw fish – in the subcontinent of desert, thousands of miles from the ocean; with the ash of a local farmer’s brush fire in our teeth. Cleaned in the mold-rich after taste of water brought thousands of miles by pipe so wretched, that some feel as though death is the better hand dealt in a deck of options dwindling in the apocalypse wind. If there ever was a time to be a voice in the wind, then that time is now. If not now, then never.

The gates to Hell are in Turkmenistan

So I find myself, sitting in the glow of my Chinese-built slave monitor – Slowdive on the radio – writing to you,

My social media family,

My facebook friends,

My audience.

Because a year without facebook didn’t change my life. It didn’t change the world. Most people didn’t even know I’d gone. My single finger-click of deactivation didn’t create the butterfly effect that I hoped it could. Even though my mind is clearer, and I’m less prone to the anger, I can’t really decide whether or not it was a year without facebook that made me feel this way, or a year of growing older. One fact I can say for sure, is that a year without facebook affected my writing in the worst possible way… I haven’t written anything. In almost a year – not a thing worth showing. Writing on the internet was an outlet for me in a dark time. I wrote about things that were bothering me or things I felt I needed to say. People liked what I wrote – my friends, the lines of code who sit in digital telepathy. The ones who liked and shared my voice, sent it as far as the shrinking globe can transmit; my audience in imaginary space – I’ve missed you. Even though we sit together in a strange prophesied manner of mind-reading that doesn’t truly exist, we still sit together, and that’s kind of cool.

But I have to admit, I’m nervous. I feel as though I’m agreeing to go back into a relationship with an abusive ex. So I’m going to need to feel like I’m in control. If we’re going to be inside each other’s heads on a regular basis, surfing with our Matrix style self-identities, (whether they be truthful or not) don’t be offended if I fail to respond to your political voice; I’m listening and paying attention in my own way. (I can assure you my eyes are open) Let’s treat each other in here how we treat each other on the street. Because sometimes the street is the better place to be, saying hello to each other in person and holding civil conversation, instead of digital fisticuffs and damning bloodlines, slapping each other’s faces with political dick-pics.

Let’s meet on a trail somewhere without cell reception and smoke some pot in a field with butterflies. We’ll get back to the cyber-bullying in enough time, but at this moment, let’s just be here now. Let’s enjoy the last of the clean air and feel the last raindrop fall not soaked in acid. Let’s try and be a positive beam in the face of the apocalypse wind. It’s 2017 and the internet is not going away, we need to learn to live with that. Facebook is how we communicate; that’s not going to change, I need to get over that. I need to find a way to “coexist” as they say. But most importantly, I need to start writing to my audience again – cause my wife is getting pretty sick of listening to my bullshit.

So here I am, another bullshit writer trudging through the feculence of the internet, trying to avoid the apocalypse wind. Maybe my voice can clear some heads while we both maneuver this imaginary space filled with things called “clickbait” and “fake news.”(the omnipresent source of the bullshit) I can promise you neither, just solid opinion as we trek through the unknown future. Whether it tends to the positive or negative, we’ll have to see. Join me on my pursuit for an ounce of honesty in the age of the Matrix and see how deep this rabbit hole really is.

Stay tuned for more bullshit and lunatic ideas from the mind of one of the last people on earth who gave a damn…

-Nate 11/2017