Category: LifeCategory: Life

My childhood included a home foreclosure and a family split because of it. Calling my parents in their later years meant talking into an answering machine, “hey guys, it’s me, Seth” and then my dad (usually) picking up the phone. “We’re here, we’re here, yes, hello!?”

They screened their calls to avoid debt collectors.

Somehow my sister and I have avoided any major financial disasters, so long as you don’t count credit card debts that come and go every few years.

All that so say, I’ve got some shame around money and (of course) taxes.

I had a phone call with a good friend and we laughed about a tax situation I’m currently facing (don’t worry, it’s fine). We shared our collective money horror stories and I felt better afterwards. Shame crumbles under the weight of laughter.

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From What People Deserve by Sky Fusco:

“You can’t get enough of a thing you don’t need, and I wonder: Maybe you also can’t get enough of a thing that never ends. It’s like these apps are the cockroach of addictions. They just won’t die, and they’re designed that way.”

The scroll never ends. You can never catch up. Everything optimized to keep you engaged.

Sky mentions how social media isn’t like other vices, since you need to leave the house to go buy alcohol or drugs. Consuming enough shuts things down – whether temporarily or by death.

That’s the sinister thing about social media. “I don’t have a problem with it,” says most people. But some people can’t have just one drink. They can’t just post something about their business on Instagram and duck out.

Read more here.

Inspired by Lindsey Adler’s recent Note, I decided that on Monday’s Escape Pod Zoom call we’d go around the room and each of us would read aloud for one minute.

Someone read their first Substack post. Someone else read old journal entries their daughter wrote at age nine. An inspirational quote and a paragraph from “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rilke. Excerpts from “Hysterical Blindness and other Southern Tragedies that Have Plagued My Life Thus Far” by Leslie Jordan. A paragraph from the Combahee River Collective Statement.

I read dialogue between two civilians signing up to run a cantina from “Death Star.”

Over the last several months, we’ve built enough connection that this activity didn’t break us. No one logged off.

And while I’m pretty sure this didn’t help anyone “quit instagram,” this was a small act of performance. This was curation. This was taking and giving of ourselves.

And the mere act of sitting there and listening to a person read? This wasn’t a YouTube video or podcast, but a Monday morning group of misfits simply reading to one another.

Not everything needs to be useful, but all of this has purpose.

Life should inform the writing on your website, your newsletter, your creative output.

This from Lyly Dhommar, from a recent Email Guidance exchange.

Uncle Seth aka Lord of Social media escape club, confirmed that yes, connections and actions in the real world are the way I should live now. Then, I’ll write about them if something happens, not the other way around.

Do all the things. Go to the shows. The art openings. The ice cream stands. The hikes. The book shops. Live in the world as much as you can withstand, read, draw, dance, and dream.

Then, when it’s time to write your newsletter, you’ll have a rich life to pull from.

I spoke with Max Pete back in May, all about getting laid off, moving across country, and finding his way into a new role with a new company in a fun way. Today he writes about “removing what’s not good for you,” starting with removing Instagram.

“I don’t need to see every vacation or life update in real time. I don’t need to compare my life to someone else’s highlight reel. I just need to be where I am. And right now, that means making space. Tuning out some of the noise so I can actually hear myself think.”

Being present is one of the hardest things when breaking with social media, especially since we’re so used to picking up our phones and scrolling when waiting in line, riding on public transit, or making coffee in the morning.

When we stop seeing what everyone else is doing, we can get back to what we’re doing.