Identity Problem

I’ll cut straight to the point – I’m having an “identity problem”. It’s not serious enough to be a crisis but not insignificant enough to be an anomaly. For four years, I’ve been connected to Facebook and Twitter and almost obsessed over status updates and tweets. Four years is the longest I’ve concentrated on something with a level of discipline like that since high school. In the greater scheme of things, I don’t need either of these things. Sure, they help immensely with communicating with friends and family from around the world and they’re great for getting the word out for my music and anything I feel like telling the world, but they’re not necessities. If I never used them again, my life would be no worse. However, I’ve been using them unconsciously in this way. Constantly refreshing pages even to this day, watching timelines change – actually watching them move. That’s not how humanity was meant to work and that’s why I’ve come to the decision of leaving both Facebook and Twitter as of 1st January 2012. Indefinitely. The joys of “indefinitely” are that I may come back when I feel my life is adequate enough to not feel like I depend on both of these social media. I may even have such an adequate life that I no longer have a need to use them at all. Unlike previous breaks, this one is serious. For my own sanity and wellbeing, I need to make this work.

I’ve not properly explained the link between this and my “identity problem” so I’ll do it here. My problem (and a problem with society in general) is that we let things define us. I’ve been reading a book called New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and he says exactly this. This obsession with “my”, “I” and “mine” is intertwined with the things we “own” and we let them become part of us. At the end of the day, they’re just things. When they get lost or we relinquish them, we still stay as we are but the thought of giving things up or not feeling any form of loss when our things are stolen seems absurd. Of course, I wouldn’t just give my Macbook away as I do genuinely need it for work, but hopefully you get the idea. My “thing” in this case is Twitter (more so than Facebook). I’ve let it become who I am to the point where I’ve let it take place of a proper personality. I tweet incessantly, this I’m aware of. I’ve managed to accrue over 119,000 tweets in over three years, which equates to nearly, on average, five tweets an hour. That may not seem many as a general figure, but when I tweet from as early as 7am and as late as 2am, that only leaves a minimum of five hours where I’m not tweeting and I’m sleeping (I usually go to bed around 1am). And that has gone on for over three years. If you replace that kind of behaviour with, say, drinking, gambling or smoking, you’ve got yourself an addict. In that sense, that is what I’ve become and I’ve let that become who I am. That is not who I am. I am not my Twitter account; I am the surveyor of the account. Even writing this sounds ludicrous in my head but it’s true. Recently, it has really made me unhappy and I really don’t like Twitter or Facebook anymore. I rant a lot more, I find people boring or incredibly ignorant and annoying and even though I’m not a great lover of society in general, I don’t need them to be at the forefront of my “habit” as I facilitate this need to be there.

That’s not to say I hate everyone I’ve ever encountered on either site; that would be a horrible thing to say. I’ve made some great friends via Twitter and Facebook: some I’ve fallen in love with, some I’ve stayed friends with and some who actually make the sites enjoyable to use. I actually look forward to finding out how these people are, what they’re doing and what they have to say. But it’s come to the point where I can just email, text or Skype these people if need be. Fortunately, my obsession doesn’t extend to these media as I only use them if I must. If I miss anything from Twitter or Facebook, it’ll be more frequent contact with these people; America is a long way from here after all. I’m assuming some people may miss me as they’ve expressed a form of sadness from previous Twitter breaks I’ve been on. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t expect anyone to care, which is perfectly acceptable because why should anyone care? That might sound a bit cruel but I can stay in contact with my friends in other ways; Twitter or Facebook needn’t be the core of communication for me. A friend of mine wrote something, which triggered this decision. She alluded to the fact that we spend our lives connected in this manner and lose the potential to be much better and more creative. Ironically, she posted it on Facebook but, as she inadvertently and unintentionally made the point of in her note, it would be the best place for it for most people to read. I don’t want to be the kind of person who says so much behind a computer screen but loses the ability to fully engage with someone when the conversation is conducted face-to-face. I feel like, in some way, I’m coming close to that and it makes me sad. I met someone last week and felt like that was happening and it was mentioned back to me. It’s bad enough that I’m nervous talking to people upon first meeting them without killing off the remaining ability I do have by conversing so confidently when another human being isn’t involved. I no longer want to interface with a machine all my emotions (as I’m doing right now, so I’ll tone it down).

If you’re wondering why I’ve chosen 1st January 2012, it’s not because I’m putting it off, far from it, it’s because I have an album out next Monday and need to use the remaining time I do have to promote it. After a week, I’ll be passing those duties onto someone else (if they won’t mind) so I can find “myself” again, or at all. I just want to be a better person than I am and I don’t see Twitter or Facebook being the services to provide that for me. I read a book that said that reality was human and that is the only way I can see myself being “real”. Social networking is an oxymoron and something not to be taken literally as a whole phrase. It is a mix of the real and the artificial. If you get immersed in the network, you lose the social aspect and vice versa (if done correctly).

So, that’s the big announcement. If you just can’t bear to be out of contact with me for whatever reason, below are some of my contact details. If we’re particularly close, I’ll email you my number but I must warn you, I’m not a great telephone person so a text might be more productive. I appreciate you taking the time out to read this and I can assure you I am okay and that I’m not dying of cancer or something.

Email: luke@starcrazy.org

Skype: munchester2cool