The Last Facebook Post

Yesterday I mentioned that I am taking great pains to reform my writing activities online.  This is why I am back to blogging here regularly, hopefully on a daily basis.  Over the past several years, I have cultivated a habit of posting hard Left-wing and critical commentary on social media several times a day on my Facebook page.....

Actually, that's not entirely true.  The gardening metaphor conjures up images of healthy botanicals and attractive perennials.  I've realized that a better analogy is to the weeds that must be uprooted in order to grow a garden properly.  My Facebook page has actually become overgrown with rantings and ravings that are not at all attractive.  In fact, it is shameful.  I was not cultivating anything of value.  I was screwing myself the same way we get mana screwed in Magic: The Gathering if we fail to build the proper mana base or include such fixing spells as Cultivate itself.

 But even that comparison lets me off the hook for what I actually doing: stacking the deck against myself.

So a couple of days ago, I determined that taking the first step to getting back to blogging here was not unlike taking the first of the twelve steps required for sobriety.  I had to admit to myself and to others that I had a problem with excessive posting on social media.

And I do!  That's a problem.  So I'm fixing it so as not to be so damned off-color.  I may be a Red, but that doesn't mean I have to spend my time online sinking deeper into a Swamp of egotistical self-indulgence.  That's the common bond between this blog and my other online activities.

I have already written about this on in my last Facebook post, which I will quote below in its entirety.  I'm already in the habit of writing online as soon as I awaken each morning.  But I need this to be a good habit, not a bad one.  I used to wake up feeling the craving to post, troll, post again, agitate, post some more, and before I knew it I would be through a whole pot of coffee with no food in my belly...and my writing would have remained just as grandiloquent as before and having failed to make my point as best as I could.  I was trying to agitate and educate and organize...but it was just agitating to others and resulted in a disorganized life for myself.

Now that I'm no longer trolling about that social media platform, I'll also note that I have taken to Twitter.  I find the restriction to 140 characters is doing wonders for my writing skills as I've probably exceeded a 140 sentence (or even paragraph!) limit on Facebook.  I hope my dear readers will follow my Twitter account as well as this blog.

Without further adieu, here is the adieu I bid to Facebook the day before I said buneas días to Cabel the Pauper: the Last Facebook Post:

Colin DavidMarch 8 at 1:02pm · 

This will be my final status update on Facebook for at least the next 40 days. It will also be the last post that I comment on publicly. This is an extension of my second-to-last update below inspired by two things: an interview with John Mayer and my recent decision to convert to Catholicism.

Turns out that I am a few days late to an annual party called Lent. I have yet to undergo the Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults, but my meeting with the local Deacon is this coming Wednesday. So even though I missed the beginning of Lent last Wednesday, I'm just going to go ahead and get started now:

For Lent, I give up posting status updates and comments here on Facebook. This is likely going to be very, very challenging. I tried to do this a few weeks ago and it turns out I've failed miserably. Again. This time, I'm getting help from above to make sure I halt this destructive, egotistical behavior.

I'm not changing my ideas about the subject matter I post about most often. I am not just becoming a committed Christian. I remain a committed socialist, a dedicated amateur philosopher, a serious hobbyist historian, and a hard-line foul-mouthed antiracist, antifacsit, antisexist, anticapitalist ect., ect., ect....

The time has come to be *antiegoistical* in addition to these qualities. I need to oppose this aspect of myself instead of opposing all sorts of things I find wrong with other people, dammit.

But I'm *not* deleting my profile, here. That would just be too easy. If I am to learn how to resist temptation, then the temptation has to be there for me to resist successfully.
Furthermore, this platform is meant to keep in touch with people who have touched my life with their friendship and family ties and common interests. I had high hopes for Facebook as a means of rubbing opposing ideas together, engaging in meaningful political and philosophical debate that moves us forward as a collective brotherhood of humanity. But after years of testing this hypothesis, I have to make a scientific conclusion that moves from theory to law:

Facebook is NOT the place to debate politics or philosophy. My hypothesis was incorrect. And in fact, my referencing it as a hypothesis was every bit as much a tactic of denial as an addicts insistence that they don't have a problem. Nope. I've got a problem wit this thing. So it's up to me to fix it once and for all.

That said, is a Private Message option here that I intend to keep using in order to keep in touch with my family and best of friends. After acquiring one of these iPhone doo-hickies, I find that many folks just plain don't call or text...but they do make use of Facebook Messenger.

So in order to avoid slipping back into isolation by cutting off this means of communication, while you won't see me posting status updates or making public comments, I encourage you to contact me via private message and we can have a one-on-one conversation. I think that's better than spewing forth my rants for the world to see when I only ever reach a handful of folks anyway.

But now it comes down to it: This post itself is already too damn long and self-indulgent and egotistical! So I'm done. I hereby give up posting Facebook status updates and comments for Lent. I think it's fitting that I'm late getting started, but this is something that is better done than never.

40 days and counting starts of no new Status Updates and Public Comments. Starting now!

Starting now...

Whew!  Thanks for reading through all this verbosity.  This time - for the last time - I think it was necessary.  Now that I've satiated my daily desire to get writing first thing in the morning, it's time to get back to work on my proletarian IRL M:TG projects, one of which will be the subject of my next update: The Great Purge of 2015!  Until then, good luck & have fun! Peace,

- C