It is a piercing noise...

I have always had a love-hate relationship with social media. Through social media, I have met a number of very good people and a select few role models (living saints) who, by example, encourage me to be much better than I am. Social media unfortunatly feeds my disordered desire for human respect, it feeds my curiosity, it swallows my time... It leaves a "ringing in the ears" when I yearn for Quiet.

The stream that appears in my Google+ (don't get me started on Facebook or Twitter) account is the definition of psychotic. One moment I am reading of the heroic virtues of St. Joseph, reading about true acts of Charity, discussing the beauty of our Catholic Liturgy, reading of the spiritual life, being encouraged to pray and fast for a complete stranger, praying for the soul of a departed one, or learning of the unchanging Truth as taught by the Doctors of our Church. It is reality. The next moment I am reading blasphemy presented as humor, hedonism presented as a lifestyle, modernism (and its endless developing flavors) promoting mind rot, blocking a profile for displaying rancid pornographic images, or getting pulled into mindless squabbling with fellow Catholics over slothful semantics. It is insanity. (For those wondering -- yes, I uses 'circles' judiciously.)

Reality insanity reality insanity insanity insanity.

Often, the noise is deafening to the senses. All of us living in this world trod through the muck of "insanity" hopefully striving to have a firm hold in the "reality". We all deal with living in the world in varying degrees regardless if we participate in social media. I do believe that in comparison to "real" social interaction... social media amplifies the strength and quickens the pace that the "insanity" is offered for consumption.

I am not puritanically condemning social media as some intrinsic evil. I am not planning to go sit in some enlightenment spawned self help circle where I dub myself an "addict of social media" and swear never to use it again. I am not off to live in a cave... not today anyway.

This morning I was ready to delete my accounts and take a social media vacation for a few months. After some discussion with those who know the beard behind the blog, I decided to leave the accounts alone and come back to them at some point in the near future. I do not have good reason for removing past posts today, but I will be cleaning up certain items in the next couple weeks.

For now I am restricting my cooperation with social media, and eagerly looking forward to the vacation from it. There are some important things that require attention.