Have You Had Enough Mental Fast-food Yet?

I have certainly had my fair share, to the point, perhaps, of bloating away with all of that infobesity, but that’s not the main reason why I have decided to come back and resume my blogging mojo. My good friend, Perry Timms, pretty much nailed it in a recent article (#disconnected) he published. To quote him: 

‘My sense is we’re a bit tired of the constant posting, posturing and positioning ourselves as someone/something of interest. Many of us are showing up as more choosy, select and thoughtful’.

And that, to me, is essentially one of the several reasons why I have returned to this blog after such a long hiatus. An opportunity to slow down, pause, think and reflect about what we have gone through over the course of the last couple of years now that work has shifted forever into this brave new-normal of distributed work and see how the last two decades would pair out to all of that massive transformation: The BigReset I tweeted back in March 2020.

I am not too sure, just yet, about the frequency of blog posts I will be putting together over here, but somehow I feel it’s going to increase its pace as time goes by. Mostly because of something else Perry highlighted in that article I mentioned above that it’s worth while reflecting on some more: 

‘The nature of the relationships built solely online is both incredible and traverses the entire world but are also wispish, vague and disposable.

You have to work at it. Find the stimulation, connection, the shared interests and make a commitment. Be pretty regular. Private/Direct message exchanges. Small social’.

[Emphasis mine]

He calls it Small Social. To me, it’s #Slowcial. But, with a twist: out in the open, publicly and readily available to everyone who may want to slow down a fair bit, shake off the ever growing FOMO (=Fear Of Missing Out) we’ve been manipulated with left and right, shift to JOMO (=Joy Of Missing Out) instead, without unknown intermediaries constantly getting in the way and relying quite heavily on the Power of Pull (Usually, via RSS feeds) to dive into different conversations as time goes by. In a nutshell, blogging.

‘Thoughtful blog posts, articles and research-led deductions ARE helpful and do still present a lot of my time online. The authors are not loud-hailing protagonists. They’re deeply thoughtful provocateurs of enlightened thinking and experience’.

That is just another excellent quote from Perry I can certainly relate to in terms of understanding how far media tools can take us and focus, instead, on whatever comes next, but long-term. Not that pernicious 15 minutes of online fame to then vanish into thin air for good, despite the pretty selfie.

In this case, to me, it’s back to what’s been there all along: more in-depth personal business relationships that expand the snacking around currently happening in media tools, through enacting lots of rage and anger, and, instead, focus on enjoying the slow food experience: a long, in-depth conversation on a particular topic to see where it takes us all.

I mean, think about it, when was the last time you had one of those interactions / conversations that lasted more than a short comment, a reaction, a single scroll down, before you had to move on to the next one, just to keep up? I know, I know, I have been there myself far too many times. That’s why I am putting a stop to it by returning back home to catch up some breath.

Perry writes brilliantly about how we may be witnessing ‘a great awakening of choice, connoisseurship and control’. 

He’s probably right; time will tell. To me though, I think I am just very happy I, finally, realised what it is like being reacquainted with that good old friend who has been long waiting for you while you were getting distracted away travelling through media tools, hopefully, gaining new learning experiences, building new business practices, adapting accordingly to what we learned, nurturing new relationships, and what not. All in all, eager to learn now all about it.

Remember Uncle Travelling Matt? 

Well, that is what it feels like right now, my dear Silly Creatures.