A “crisis of identity”
I’m in one of those states of mind tonight where I am questioning everything related to how I use technology - blogging (what’s the point?), sharing photos (again, what’s the point?), am I using the “right” web browser, should I “start over” with notes, etc., etc., etc.?
The questions are the same ones I’ve asked myself a million times by now. Sometimes I act on them and, after causing myself a not-insignificant amount of work deleting or moving things around, changing apps, etc., eventually end up back in the same state of mind. This time I’m questioning why. Why do I do this? What part of my personality gets me to this point? Am I missing something in my life that causes this nearly endless cycle of this stuff? Why does it make any difference in the end?
I think I buy into some of these framings of things (Google is terrible, use Brave or Firefox if you really value your privacy) without really giving it much thought. It’s popular in nerd circles therefore it must be correct. I’m, starting to feel that I have too much of my identity wrapped up in there things which doesn’t seem quite right.
I’m also obsessed with the ideas of being able to search journal entries and holding on to data because I might need it. Here is the reality: I never search old journal entries and I never go back to my archives of old articles to look for anything, ever. So why am I holding on to all of that stuff? It just causes work for me maintaining it not to mention that small amount of brain cycles knowing it’s out there which causes an ever-so-small amount of cognitive noise.
On the bright side (if there can be a bright side to this stuff), I see these types of traits and behaviors in others in the online circles I frequent. People always fiddling with blogging software, note apps, “privacy” tools, etc. We all spend a lot of time fiddling and all seem to lament it, not knowing if it’s “right” or not. I’m not alone but it’s a mind space I’m certainly not enjoying at this point but I’m stuck in a huge rut.