So here’s the thing. I used to really, really love the casual connectedness of the Internet. I used to really, really love just speaking into the abyss and making friends when people replied.

The operative word is “used to”.

It has stopped being fun. It has started being work. It leaves me feeling drained, not invigorated.

This could be the fault of Kids These Days™. It could be that Twitter is evil. It could be that I’m becoming a bitter old man (I do turn 24 this month…)

But here’s the thing: I don’t care anymore. I really, honestly, with all my heart, could not care less about which of those statements, if any, is true.

And when I don’t care, it’s time to step away.

So I’m going to step away for the month of July. I’m uninstalling Twitter on my phone. I’m blocking it on my computers.

Don’t get me wrong; I love the people I’ve met there. If we exchange @mentions even infrequently, or even if we exchanged them once, this is not a slight on you, nor a desire for you to stay away. I sincerely hope you will email me, text me, write love letters in my HTTP Referer logs, knock on my goddamn door, and otherwise stay in touch. I’ll still be on XMPP. I’ll still hop on Freenode infrequently. I’ll still answer email, and I still want to see you.

The people I’ve met are the reason something like this will be hard, because I rely on them for inspiration and courage and hope and smiles. I rely on you for these things.

But the scales have finally tipped, and it’s become a net negative in my life. So it is time for it to go.

In the meantime, I might end up blogging more frequently here. Subscribe if you haven’t and you want to stay up to speed.

I’ve also decided I am going to, at long last, start working on Tangles, a blogging project I’ve wanted to get going for, quite literally, years now. It will be running at tangles.paddy.io and will eventually become this blog, once I get the software to a stable enough state. I’ll post updates here if I get it going in the next month, but no promises.

I’m planning to implement the blocks and uninstalls when I wake up July 1st. Make sure we swap contact information by then.

I’ll see you all soon. Please be here when I get back. Please come find me while I’m gone.

Hugs always,
Paddy