I was going to put this at the bottom of the last post, but I think it warrants a totally separate discussion.  I was referring to current adults as the Willy Loman generation.

We’re the generation that saw the gatekeepers removed.  Okay, not really removed, but shunted out of the way on certain streets.  We still have agents, editors, casting directors, and music executives, but now we also have people who are having their voice heard on social media.  And it’s an entirely new way to feel like crap about your place in the world when you see someone else getting their thoughts heard through this means and you’re still not even though no one is standing in your way.

I’m not just talking about the Heather Armstrongs of the world whose writing has hit the mainstream: we have plenty of examples close to home of people that we perceive of having their voice heard.  I can look at my friends list on Facebook and see who receives a lot of feedback on their thoughts and who does not.  And I can judge my own level of feedback against others.  We each determine at what level of recognition we will be satiated, we will feel as if our voice is heard.

What I guess I’ve really been tossing around in my mind these last few days since I read that article is the idea of this next generation: the one we are creating or raising.  We’re putting our kids online.  We’re writing about them and throwing up pictures.  And part of this is keeping family and friends in the loop about our lives, but part of it is that we also make them the subject for readers, much in the same way DIY bloggers may feature the room they’re making over or a food blogger may feature a recipe.  Many parents feature their kids, and those kids are human beings who are going to one day grow up and have their own relationship with the idea of seeking attention.

I’m not trying to make anyone squirm, but I think this is a really important conversation to have and I think by the end of this post, I ultimately can see the good in posting online.

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Blogs have turned our lives — and by extension, our children’s lives — into small-scale Truman Shows.  Remember that movie?  We watch Truman from conception, and really, when it comes to infertility blogs, that’s how far back it goes in some cases.  I don’t “know” your children, but I’ve read the stories and seen the pictures, and they are an extension of the writer (whom I care about and often times have a friendship that has grown outside the blog).

And I know, at least when it comes to my kids, that they are cognizant that people know about them without ever having met them.  And really, in comparison to most kids, mine are barely online.  There are no images of them, and while I may write about my own foibles as the tooth fairy — a story that features them — I try never to write about them.  Still, they’ve scrolled through comments on a post that they’ve been in and asked who all these people are who have read the story.

Still, they know that there are people out there who are willing to pay attention.  And by default, there are no Willy Lomans currently amongst the twins and every child I know.  They are in the spotlight, and it’s not just close family and friends who are following their life as it was when I was a child.  It is family, friends, and anyone else that we connect with via social media.  And in cases such as the blog or Twitter, by not keeping the settings on private, it could be anyone in the world.

What will that do to our kids — to have that knowledge that people want to pay attention to them?  I’m not talking about the children of Heather Armstrong or Ree Drummond who are featured front and center on their blog and known by hundreds of thousands of people.  I’m talking about all our kids.  Yes, it’s a matter of scale, but (almost) everyone is on the scale.  They are aware — at least I can say they are by upper elementary school — that they are the stars of their own personal Internet show.

Will it turn all of our kids into the equivalent of child stars and will their Willy Loman-ness come from having the attention go away?  Isn’t that the common problem we see with child stars and why so many of them struggle with growing up?  They are accustomed to the attention and feeling special in front of the camera, and then they age and have to learn how to grab attention because it is no longer being handed to them on a silver platter?

Some are okay with the idea that the attention is over because they never loved it in the first place (or may have had no concept of the attention if they were young enough).  Some learn how to keep grabbing attention, aging into new acting roles because of luck or talent.  And then a portion of them deal with the fallout of having the warmth of attention snatched away from them, and unable to figure out how to get it back, become depressed or addicted or in trouble.

So it makes me wonder if by placing them online so young, we are creating a state of hedonic adaptation and forcing every child towards a mindset of screaming “look at me!” in bigger and bigger ways into the future.

Or maybe not.  Maybe this could be a good thing.

Since everyone is online and attention if being paid (in the Willy Loman fashion), does it all even out?  Are we actually doing kids a favour by showing them early on that there is nothing special, nothing magical about attention?  It’s not something they really need to strive for as we’re still doing in our generation because they’ve already learned that attention doesn’t really bring what you think it will bring.  It isn’t the panacea solving all problems.  I have a strong feeling that even if attention were paid to Willy Loman, that it wouldn’t have been enough or the right kind.  I think Willy Loman would have always ended up Willy Lomaning.

Because right now it feels as if social media is a mountain pushing its way out of the ground.  At the very top are the early adaptors who also happened to have good content who have used social media as a springboard to create a large platform or to move on to other things.  And scattered down the side of the mountain, at various heights, are the rest of the public, with some people choosing to stay on low ground and not even attempt to climb up.

But perhaps the weight of this many people on the mountain will ultimately force it to crumble and become much more like a plateau. Maybe all the reality shows and Internet highlighting shows and the fame frenzy of social media is like a fever that needs to break.

And when that happens, maybe it will be for the best, and we’ll live in a world where fame isn’t chased or rewarded.  We’ll focus locally vs. globally, on family and friends instead of strangers.  You know, utopia.

A girl can dream.

Trigger warning: this post contains a story about suicide.  Please tread carefully or don’t read this post if this topic is a sensitive one for you.

The Washington Post ran a story this past weekend.  I read it because a friend linked to it on Facebook.  And then I couldn’t stop talking about it.  I guess I still need to unpack it.

A writer, living in Japan, sent out a suicide note to a handful of mostly American journalists; strangers that he had never met.  He told them that by the time they read his message, he would be dead, and that he was killing himself because after many decades of trying to get people to read his words (blog posts, books, etc), he was done trying.  If writing was the work that he was meant to do while alive, and no one was paying attention to his writing, he didn’t see the point in continuing to live.

From the note:

I am taking my life not out of despair but simply because I’ve said everything I wanted to say and consider my work finished. Since no one at present (nor in the past half-century) is interested, I have no platform upon which to stand and talk about my work. In this regard, I believe I have an immense amount to give, not only from my mind but from my heart, and there are just no takers.

This happened in 2013 — the note being sent — and the author of the WashPo article (Cynthia McCabe, one of the people who received the note) tracked down other people who received the note and wrote about their experience.  She also followed a trail of this man’s writing: from the blog posts with empty comment sections to Facebook status updates without discussion to his self-published books.

I read the comment section on the article. (Why did I read the comment section?  I never read the comment section.  Melissa, never ever read the comment section!)  The group seemed to be processing the article in several different ways:

• There were the people who agreed with the phrase the WashPo author (McCabe) borrowed from Dara Horn — “emotional mugging” (“As I sat there in bed following this digital trail, I grew angry. The selfishness of someone to dump this psychic mess into the lap of a complete stranger was too much. And for what? Because his writing, his ideas, hadn’t gotten the attention he felt they deserved.”)
• There were the people who admonished the WashPo author for not immediately acting, trying to do more to save his life, and called her cruel.
• There were the people who wondered if by writing this story and giving him this attention that it would attract others to end their life in the same way.
• There were the people who admitted they didn’t know what they would do if they were in the same situation, but the story was incredibly sad.

I was one of those people who felt the residue from this story on her skin for many hours… days… afterward.  I looked up his blog, it was easy to find, and it was clear that he was planning his death for some time before he took his life.  All of his posts were printed on the same day in March, about 8 months before he sent the email to the reporters.  A thought that moves through many of the posts:

And one begins to scheme about ways—writing a blog for example—to try to keep the work from being forgotten. So that if my tomorrow doesn’t come, hopefully the writing’s will.

*******

There was a quote by Ron Charles in the WashPo article that I kept tossing about in my mind:

“There are more people writing than ever who are desperate for attention, and we just don’t have that much attention to give,” Charles said. “No matter how rich or educated we become, we only have the 24 hours for each of us. And with everybody promoting themselves on every possible social network, all of us so desperate for eyeballs, myself included, with all of us living and dying by our click history, it is kind of an extreme and terrible example of everybody’s feeling of ‘Why aren’t you looking at me?’ ’’

Early in the article, McCabe stated this idea, too:

He was Willy Loman with WiFi, demanding that attention must be paid. Nobody really did.

It’s a familiar refrain even if the vast majority of people who talk about the frustration of not having the audience they want would never take their life.

Social media is frustrating — an extension of the ever-frustrating fine arts.  We have more people who want to express themselves than we have people to witness that expression, especially when it comes to books which take a long time to consume in comparison to a song or movie.

We’ve always had the frustration of gatekeepers — of agents and editors and casting directors and music executives — that keep people from the acknowledgment of their talent that they seek.  Because while I don’t think every artist wants to be famous, I do think that all want their talent (the way they see the world, the way they express the way they see the world, the way they make you feel) recognized.

And now we add social media into the mix.  We don’t have the gatekeeper, so everyone can put their writing or music or acting out there.  But it doesn’t mean that it will be acknowledged.  And in some ways, that is more frustrating than not having your work out there at all.  It’s one thing to not have people read your writing if you can’t get it out there.  It’s another to get it out there and have no one read it.

Of course, this is a moot point if you’re not using social media to get your words into the world.  If you’re using it for personal reasons, such as to record a journey so you can reflect upon it yourself in the future and it’s simply more convenient to post it than to keep it in a private diary.  Or if you use Twitter just to talk to friends; a conversation conducted in public vs. privately.  But for people who want to get their words into the world, it can be a difficult medium to navigate.

Especially since social media, with its constant focus on metrics (how many followers do you have, how many views, how many likes), drives [what you perceive to be] a lack of readership* point home.  Even worse, you don’t have to guess on how other people are faring.  You can clearly see a chunk of their metrics.  We keep getting new rulers to measure ourselves with.

Which makes me wonder if social media is going to create the Willy Loman generation.  If we’re creating more frustration, depression, isolation with this tool that can equally bring frustrated, depressed, isolated people together with community?

When everyone is attempting to reach the audience, who is the audience?  If everyone is on stage, who is sitting in the theater seats?

*******

McCabe wonders if the reason why the suicide note was sent to journalists was that the writer didn’t want to be stopped but instead wanted to set his legacy.

It is possible that what he really wanted — what mattered more to him than life itself — was to have his writing finally talked about.

After all, why choose a bunch of journalists that you’ve never met, people who would be asleep while you were attempting to end your life and would not receive the message until it was too late?  Because they were fellow writers and therefore may understand and sympathize in a way that people in his daily life couldn’t relate?  Because he wanted them to take his writing and carry it forward?  I mean, that is what happened.  I would have never heard of this writer otherwise; but his death made us reflect on his writing.

His ex-wife (quoted in the article) was correct: the taking of his life meant that his words finally reached his fellow writers, people who understood what he was trying to say for 66 years.

I don’t know why this article affected me so much, or how I feel about what he did.  Is it cruel that he shoved his way into these journalists’ lives, especially in a way that dumps a heaping portion of guilt?  He didn’t know their triggers, nor did he seem to care while he was demanding care.

Or was he merely reaching out to fellow writers in the same way that we all grasp at like-minded community?  I really don’t know.

Maybe that is why I ultimately read the comments: because I was trying to figure out how I felt about it.

* I put that in brackets because everyone’s perception of what constitutes a lack of readership is different.  For some having any readers is great.  And for some, having anything under 10,000 readers is feeling invisible.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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The Atlantic had an article last week about individual internal clocks, and how we’re not all programmed to be productive between 9 and 5.  I mean, yes, most people are good waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night, in the same way that the average body temperature is 98.6.

The article is about Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS), which afflicts 1 in 750 people, causing them to be nocturnal.  I’m certainly not nocturnal, but my natural body clock doesn’t start winding down until well after midnight (as in I’m productive at 2 am) and I don’t feel like I truly wake up until about 1 pm.  If the rest of the world wasn’t up and productive in the morning, I would shift my day to fit my natural clock.  But since the rest of the world expects me to be awake during the day, I painfully drag myself out of bed at 6:30 am (though I usually don’t get to sleep until after midnight).

How is your natural body clock set?  Skewed towards waking up early and going to bed early, or are you more of a night owl?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

Discovery magazine peed in my Cheerios with their article about how having an extraordinary experience can ultimately bring you down.  Apparently we don’t really savour the memories after a big trip like we would an expensive piece of chocolate.  We more gag and choke on the memories once the experience is over.

Crap.

The reason given: “A new study finds that’s not always so: extraordinary experiences can actually generate unhappy feelings as well, because others in your ordinary social group are unable to relate to your stories.”

So you go through a life-changing experience and come back a different person, but now you’re out of sync with everyone around you, like Alice returning from Wonderland.  How could she explain the White Rabbit and the Red Queen and what it’s like to grow bigger and smaller to anyone who wasn’t there?

The article states:

Social pleasures, however, stem from other things we crave like acceptance, belonging and camaraderie. Therefore, an exciting trip to Bali may come at a social cost when standing around the coffee machine on Monday morning.

This is, as the article points out, remedied by taking people with you that you can discuss the trip (or substitute in any unusual experience) with afterward.  Though that doesn’t really solve the fact that you will still be standing around the coffee machine Monday morning with people who didn’t go with you.

All of that said, I was thinking about infertility as an unusual experience and how it does isolate you, even after it’s “over” in the sense that you are parenting or living child-free (in other words, not actively building your family).  The experience changes you and causes a social rift, even after it’s over.  Maybe moreso after it’s over.  Hence why it is important to have people to discuss it with.

Just a small thought I’m tossing around this weekend after reading the article.

And hey, tiny thought, I could have made it as a #MicroblogMonday post for tomorrow.  Except that this post runs a little on the long side for a micro post.

The twins had to have their first real blood draw this week.  I put it off for a while because they were nervous, but I finally told them that it had to come off my to-do list.  It went better than expected, but I should probably add that my expectations were that we (1) would not actually get blood drawn because (2) they would flip out and (3) the phlebotomist would end up with a needlestick or bruised shins.

Blood was drawn.  The screaming (only one child flipped out) was over in about 30 seconds.  The phlebotomist was unharmed.  They got doughnuts afterward.

I asked them if it was as bad as they worried it would be.  The non-screaming child said it was pretty much what they expected.  The screaming child said it was so much worse than they thought it would be.  But all lived through the experience, and I got to check the box on my to-do list to boot.

But I’m really grateful that we don’t have to do this again (I hope) for a while.  It is really awful to see your kid that upset and worried.  It makes me feel like crap leading them in there, even though I know it’s something that they need to suck up and do.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Our Community” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Northern Star!
• “Stop Waiting” (Ali on the Run)
• “Nail Salons Proven to be the Pit of Hell for Infertiles” (InfertilityHonesty)
• “Perspective: Perfect Woman” (Dreaming of Diapers)
• “Dharana, The Practice of Focus, and Food for Thought: Candied Pecans” (A Half-Baked Life)
• “A Tale of Two Playgroups” (Invincible Spring)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Looking for a Little has a story about a spoon that has traveled great distance and time.  She explains how she feels when she sees this spoon in her drawer, which once belonged to her husband and is now waiting for her future child.  She has tucked the spoon away for the time being, but it’s a poignant post about how a tangible object can become the receptacle for a lot of emotion.

Unpregnant Chicken has a post questioning intuition after an exchange with a stranger makes her wonder if the child somehow knows something that she doesn’t know yet.  She admits: “I’ve had that sense before. That our child is waiting in the wings. Almost close enough to touch. Willing us to keep going.  I allow myself to linger in that thought for a moment. Allowing myself to imagine that this child’s intuition is right.”  It’s a post about finding hope exactly when she needs it most.

Earth & Ink has a hold-your-breath type post about becoming a blank slate.  Or, really, that her life has become a blank slate though she still carries her memories and personality over to this blank slate.  It’s a sobering question: what would you do with a start-over?

Lastly, My Path to Mommyhood catches a moment where she can see what her future child may look like as her husband yawns.  They have one more chance coming up but she writes: “somehow, seeing a little apparition of that baby-that-could-be in the middle of Home Depot really brought home the incredible loss that we are most likely facing, and how much mourning is buried inside me.”  It is a moving post in its rawness.

The roundup to the Roundup: We survived our first blood draw.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 9th and 16th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.