I need to take a break from Ordinary Times, at least for a little while.
A while ago, I wrote a post saying that I'm considering "withdrawing for moral health." I didn't really withdraw. Part of what I meant, though I didn't say it, was that I was going to disengage from the Ordinary Times blog. If you paid attention (or care), I didn't really withdraw. I have since then written a few blog posts and continued to comment there.
The main problem is that I choose to be someone I don't like when I participate there. I take things personally that aren't meant personally. Well, sometimes they're meant personally, but they don't have to be taken personally. I adopt a posture where I choose to dislike certain commenters personally, even though I have never met them in person. Sometimes I find I'm prepared to angrily disagree with what someone says even before I read their comment. Sometimes even when it turns out I agree with what they're saying. In too many of those cases, I change my mind to disagree with that which I had previously agreed--all because I don't like the person who uttered it.
It's not just the people I don't like, either. I choose to be defensive even when people's disagreements are ones I'm willing to accept, that is, when I'm not very invested in the point at issue, or when the disagreement is reasonable, or when I've anticipated the disagreement, or when I (supposedly) steeled myself for the probability someone would raise it. Even if someone agrees with me, I'll sometimes choose to be defensive.
I don't say any of this as a criticism of Ordinary Times or as a criticism of the commentariat there. Even though some of my gripes against some of the commenters there are, in my opinion, legitimate, I have no legitimate prerogative to treat some of the people there as I do.
In fact, it's not really about Ordinary Times at all. OT just happens to be the online community in which I participate the most often and the most deeply. There's something about internet engagement that seems dangerous or tempting in a way that I'm no longer equipped (if I ever was) to weather, and OT is there site where I most often encounter that "something."
I say "dangerous or tempting" warily. There's something about the frequent "internet is bad" or "social media is ruining us" mantras that make me uneasy. It's not so much that I disagree. Rather, it seems too simplistic. I have a hard time getting a handle on all the pathologies the internet and social media supposedly cause or make worse, and I have a hard time getting a handle on how the internet and social media do that. I also suspect the relevant "pathologies" have a non-technological, or extra-technological, component that persists regardless of whether or in what ways I, or anyone, withdraws.
I'm not fully confident I'll be successful in my temporary withdrawal from OT. It's tempting to wend my way on over there, "just to see what they're writing," or "just to comment on that one post," or "just to float this idea in a blog post over there."
Another danger is that I'll find a new site and recommit the same errors I did at OT. So in theory--assuming I follow through--a concomitant decision will be to engage less fully in comment culture elsewhere.
And yet another danger: Removing oneself from temptation is not virtue. It can actually be vicious. Maybe it creates complacency, or a cowardice informed by not wanting to face challenges. It can indicate a closing into oneself. There are probably other ways it's vicious.
I will try to write more often here, though. One big disadvantage in doing so is that I'll be writing more for myself and less for an audience. I think my writing at OT is better than my writing here. At OT, I usually do several, several drafts. I cut many of my darlings. And I strive to anticipate and address objections I know others will have. When I write here, it's more off-the-cuff.
UPDATE, FEBRUARY 5, 2021: I realize that Lent doesn't begin for about a week, but nonetheless, I'm starting it now.
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