(This post was originally published at the now-defunct Women Alive blog on May 27, 2011. As I wrote just last Tuesday, it’s still relevant.)
Dear Friends, Family, List Buddies, Facebook Pals, E-mail Forwarders, Twitterers, Bloggers, Authors, Musicians, Guy Who Posts Interesting YouTube Videos, Journalists, Linkers, Photographers, Book Reviewers . . .
Perhaps there’s a shorter way to address this:
Dear Everlasting Internet Cocktail Party:
It’s been great.
For the last several years you have enlivened my life. From you I have learned about news, trends, and gossip as they happened. You have introduced me to topics and people I did not know existed, and you have stimulated me constantly, giving me hundreds—thousands—tens of thousands of things to think about, look at, listen to, and move on from.
You have made it very easy for me to keep up with you, and for that I am grateful. I have seen pictures of your boyfriends, spouses, friends, children, and people you just met and started hanging out with, and I have known what was on your heart, what was making you laugh, and what you ate for breakfast.
You have been fascinating, fun, witty, literate, and always attention-getting.
Thus it is with some regret that I announce my departure from your world. I will be dropping in now and again, at predetermined times and for limited engagements. (I will not have time for all of you, so those whom I truly love and those whom I really learn from must take priority.) I will be contributing in my own way, through blog posts born of my new life.
You see, I have realized that scattering my attention to the four corners of the earth, as you continually call me to do, is shallowing the waters of my soul. I read Tweets, but not books. I do Facebook, but not community. I think, but I do not meditate, for I have no time or mental space left for doing so. I “touch base,” but I do not converse.
“The unexamined life is not worth living,” Socrates said. I choose to withdraw from the cocktail party, for I wish to be deeply conversant with life.
Best wishes, and sincere affection,
Rachel
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