Reducing the noise

I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately. Not entirely focused on anything, lacking any productivity.

So three days ago, I made a change: I disabled my Threads, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts.

Since then, I can’t say I’m magically more productive; however I do feel like the noise has been reduced in my world. I suspect this is the lack of algorithm-based feeds in my life with these three social networks removed. I’m still on others like Mastodon, YouTube & Reddit, but the ability to turn off or ignore any algorithmic feed (if they have any) is useful.

I can go into these services, use them and then move on without the pull of the dopamine reward of the pull-to-refresh function coming along.

Thinking about it further and reading a post from Lee Peterson on the subject, I’m starting to look at reducing my consumption of podcasts throughout the day.

I listen to a lot of podcasts, but many of them are simply background noise as I go through my day. This is not helpful for my focus, as the voices and discussion tend to hamper my own thought process.

So while I haven’t deleted my podcast app yet, I’m making a conscious effort to no longer randomly put them on in the background.

We shall see if any of these changes stick. I suspect professionally I may seek to reenable LinkedIn at some point. The dopamine part of me misses Threads, but I think about how at ease my brain has been since I disabled it. Instagram only exists to give me access to Threads, so that it pretty easy to keep off.

Older

I’ve been extremely blessed and grateful in my life so far, in part cause I’m yet to experience true grief in losing a loved one. While I’ve lost a grandparent and other relatives, my lack of communication from many of my extended family (my choice, not theirs) has meant I’ve had emotional separation to experience those moments more from the outside looking in.

As I get older, have kids of my own and see the people I grew up with getting more frail and weary; I know it will come. I can’t lie, I’m unsure how well I would cope with true grief.

A few specific things have brought this passing of time into sharp focus. My dad’s health has been hit over the past few years. While he could very much have some time left with us, there is a fear it could not if his health takes a turn for the worst.

The tough old bastard has already dealt with a brain tumour and heart attacks before I was 20. I’m grateful he’s even been able to be around another 20+ years as I’ve grown, gotten married and had kids of my own.

More than anything if the worst was to happen; I fear my kids going through the grief over anything I’ll be experiencing.

The second thing is less dire and more a recognition that the passage of time is going by. My niece is about to move to another city and embark on a life of her own. It’s an exciting time and a wonderful opportunity for a amazing young woman; I think she will thrive.

But there’s the obvious things. Family gatherings will have an obvious seat empty. While we are lucky enough to live in the age of easy and free video calls at any time, we are well aware it’s never the same thing. As a family with my wife’s side of the family living in the UK, we are very used to it but also increasing aware of its limitations as they get older too.

Mostly though while my niece is an amazing young woman, I still see her as the little almost 5 year old flower girl at our wedding. While I miss those days sometimes, I’m so happy I can look back in fondness and excited to look forward and see how she goes in this world.

So while time can induce fear of unknowns moving forward; it can also provide joy and excitement for whats next.