What a muddle.

I find myself unable to completely embraced the connected world, and unwilling to completely reject it.

I'm somewhere in the muddle middle, swinging back and forth.

For example, I got caught up in Reddit for awhile.  I'd go there right after I'd checked my usual spots or whenever I wanted to 'waste' some time.  Then I stumbled on that decapitation video and it creeped me out so much I've never been back.

The excuse to get out from under the immense flow.

Facebook newsfeed is full of little memes and tropes; but they're the same memes and tropes that are in Reddit or Youtube, just one step removed, and chosen idiosyncratically.

If linking other material can ever truly be idosyncratic.

I have a couple dozen sites I visit everyday.  They aren't all that different from hundreds of other sites I could visit, just chosen because they had slight variations that I like just a little bit more.

I like keeping in touch with nephews and nieces and old friends -- or at least overhearing (over-looking?) their activities.  I like the interactions with other people, when they happen.  It's probably better than the isolation that my lonerhood usually creates.

But I wasn't unhappy in my lonerhood.  Occasionally, I'd question my choices, knowing that it's a dangerous location -- I could get very isolated very fast if things went wrong.  But things haven't gone wrong, and I get enough exposure to others to ward off most the weirdness that comes from being a loner.  I recognize that I might get very isolated in my last years, but it doesn't really scare me.  I'm more or less happy in my own head, with my books and movies and my thoughts.

But is being connected really all that much better?  I'm not sure.  Like I said, on a scale of 1 - 10, I'm probably connected at about a 3 or a 4 compared to most younger people, maybe a 5 or 6 compared to people my age. 

Or maybe not.  Maybe people my age are more connected -- just as they are more socially oriented.

This whole writing thing has me wondering.  What was I doing with my time before writing?  Not putting it to much use, I have to believe.  

So I feel like I'm in the muddled middle.  Neither truly embracing this Twitter, Reddit, Blogger, Facebook life. (Well, maybe Blogger).  Nor able to make a clean break from it, which is a philosophically attractive choice, except -- what am I doing really, cutting myself off from information and insight and others?

I suppose if what connectivity I have was being used to replace real social connectivity, it might be a bad thing.  But for me, it's in addition to what I'd normally do, so I have to believe it's a good thing.

Even if it does feel muddled.