Back on Twitter (Somewhat) (Patreon)

So some of you may have noticed that, after all my pontificating and garment-rending, I am back on Twitter. I could be stubborn and stay away as a point of pride, but life is too short for such face-spiting gestures. But I am not exactly jumping in with both feet. I think that the three months away helped me to figure out how I can minimize Twitter's presence in my daily life while still allowing it to serve as a basic communication device.

After all, while I was able to keep in touch with some people during my hiatus via email, I lost touch with many more. This is regrettable, but understandable. I was the one who left the circuit and demanded a new set of habits from busy people. What's more, I decided that avoiding social media completely was a bit like being a hippie who decides, self-righteously, not to have a television set. 

Yes, most of what gets transmitted over the medium is toxic. But at the same time, the medium is just a tool, and the onus is on us (me) to use it wisely and ethically. Being a Luddite is not going to help matters any. It's just going to insure that (for example) I would not be aware for days that South African musical giant Johnny Clegg had died. (To be honest, the fact that I did not know about Douglas Crimp's passing until five days later was the deciding factor in opening my account and starting to plug myself back into the network.)

I still plan to be more restrictive in my use than I was before. I hope to have a smaller account in terms of followers and accounts followed. I want to avoid kneejerk reactions to things, especially political discussions and dumb memes. I hope to slowly reintroduce Twitter into my life in a healthier, less consuming way. And I am no longer going to try to have "civil discourse" with Trumpists. Fuck them.

So that's what we've got here. "msicism 2.0," born from utter hypocrisy, will undoubtedly be a place of caution and humility. "And the rest is silence," aka shutting the hell up.