Good afternoon crickets. Welcome to day number three-hundred-forty-six of Operation Achieve Anything. Last night, when I finished up my work for the day, I thought that I hit the “restart and update,” notification that randomly popped up, with the hopes that my computer would be updated and ready to go when I woke up. Turn’s out I had to click “OK” one more time, leaving me to have to wait two hours for said update to take this morning. I wish my computer would have given me a warning that this would be an extra long one considering the fact that I was only expecting this process to take about fifteen minutes like the past couple rounds.

Though I was annoyed by what this meant for my schedule for the day, I did end up having a little fun on social media, in ways that I usually only reserve for when I am drunk, like the way I was over the weekend. Ever since Sunday’s bout of drunken rambling, I’ve been rethinking the way that I want to use social media. The thing is, I’m still adjusting from the fact that I pretty much completely shut down socially in the real world a little over four years ago during my midlife meltdown. I tried to chime in from time to time with jokes to keep up the facade that I was a little down in the dumps but still doing okay, until I gave up on digitally communicating as well.

It was at this point that I mainly resorted to social media to share the links for this blog. I’d still joke here and there through Twitter, and The Wicker Breaker Facebook page, but I was perfectly willing to let any of my personal accounts go dark. I’ve worked with and/or personally know about ninety-five-percent of the people I follow on Facebook, so posting seemed pointless whenever I would share a personal project that I was particularly proud of, only to see the number of friends following me drop, or not react at all. Meanwhile, I would post a picture of Hulk Hogan with a caption saying how his skin looks like a hot dog and the reactions would go through the roof.

This left me so confused because every time I tried to be a real person it felt like I was being punished, which is the same way I always felt in real life, where unless I was telling a joke, no one was listening at all. This got me feeling a bit sour about social media in general which is why my non-blogging digital interactions almost entirely dropped off. I get it though, I’ve hidden most of my closest friend on Facebook because it’s just too painful to revisit the past, which also added to my decision to quiet down, even though I do give in to these temptations from time to time.

I think this may have gotten me out of practice when it comes to communicating to the outside world in general. Since all of these insights have been made in silence, with no one but my inner voice to help me work through my thoughts toward the reasoning behind why everyone so readily accepted my decision to opt to isolate myself, it can seem like I’m better off alone. I then carry over bitterness that comes from the abandonment feelings in every area of my life where I try to interact with others, even though I was the one who left first.

This just leads to the suppression of efforts to express myself outside of this blog, which is the only place I feel safe. Of course, suppression always leads to post that feel like outbursts from holding everything in. That’s why even if I’m trying to make a joke it can feel a lot more extreme as I vomit out whatever happens to be inside me. I then assume the silence comes from me being judges when really, I’ve never seen all that much interaction through Twitter, I always felt that’s where I could go to just screaming in the wind since I don’t have a blue check mark and nobody knows my name.

Recently, I’ve been getting more and more Twitter followers who seem to actually be reading my work, or at least interacting with my Tweets in positive ways. Many are fellow SNL fans who discovered my My Saturday Night Life challenge. This has gotten me to be more interactive in others posts and has made the platform in general much more fun. Where in the past, outside of merely sharing my Wicker Breaker content, I only used Twitter to wind myself up while following the news.

I’ll follow anyone who has anything interesting to say whether or not I agree with them, kind of in the way that they always say, “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer,” since I want to know all of the thoughts on what’s going on in the world, whether they’re right or wrong. I agree with many things on the left, something on the right, but mostly I land somewhere in between having always been told that my idealized outlook on the world is impossible to achieve. Being open to listening to damn near anything, provides more options for getting things to work in the real world. It also enables one to see what “the other side” is thinking, instead of continually feeling confused.

Rather than just question, “How could anyone think this way,” which seems to be the go-to response, listening to everything allows you to see the timeline of these thoughts. Though I may not agree with the outcome of the line of thinking that I look into, at least it doesn’t seem like these thoughts came from out of the blue, which is my major issue with the building trend to attempt to sanitize the past, instead of leaving it as is to be studied. Then again, this only adds to my frustration, since most of my political bickerings are based on balance, which doesn’t seem to go over well with either side.

This frustration sucks because I never really wanted to ever talk politics in the first place because I never found it to be fun. During Sunday’s drunkfest on Twitter, I actively tried to keep it light and interacted with other while trying to be more positive and just play, while not trying to turn everything into an explanation of why/where I stand. Instead of only trying to share my thought, I was liking, retweeting, and complimenting others on their projects. Toward the end, when I was wasted, I may have slipped into my old ways, but ever since then, I’ve noticed that my entire outlook on the platform has changed. Well, at least a little for now.

Ever since then, I’ve been feeling a little more positive about my efforts to interact. I’m back to focusing more on fun than desperately trying to defend my point of view to a virtual world that’s only a bunch of barking dogs in the middle of the night in the first place. The transition towards my return to being more playfully interactive online, and in life in general, may continue to be awkward for a while, like a person first attempts to relearn how to walk after an accident, but, hopefully, I’ll figure it out.

This sort of fulfills yesterday’s task where I was supposed to explore the quote of the day about not giving up just because you’re not quite yet ready to go whole-hog. My giving up on social media started because I felt unpopular to the point where I felt my insights were useless, thinking only of those who used to be close that I now feel are ignoring my thoughts and not the silent few who still appreciate my input. Unfortunately, this is a part of the all or nothing/black and white thinking that comes with bipolar disorder, which also adds to the ping-ponging of my thoughts.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to figure it all out. Until then, it’s now time for me to introduce the assignment for today where I’m supposed to explore the idea of humility and how it fits into my world. As always, you’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s update in order to read what I come up with. With that, I will wrap this one up as usual by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your projects.

Talk to you soon.

Sincerely,

The Wicker Breaker

P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.