Conversations With God During a 30 Day Social Media Detox and How It Changed My Life - Unedited, Unabridged, & Unfiltered. Rachael J Avery
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Conversations With God During a 30 Day Social Media Detox and How It Changed My Life - Unedited, Unabridged, & Unfiltered
by
Rachael J Avery
Copyright 2013 Rachael J Avery,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1893-3
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
1. Ground 0. A Facebook Intervention.
Easter Morning Emotion Scramble.
Dear God, I'm not sure why you created such a monster, such a beast, such a time sucking, blood sucking, portable essence extractor but this morning I was at its grip and its little cousins too. Why would you create this thing they call Facebook? Why would you have us humans whom you know to be challenged everyday with finding one moment to be with ourselves, unknowingly dying inside to observe one little tiny thought of self-reflection enter the realm of Facebook? Now a death grip on our smarter than us phones to look to during every elevator wait, red stop light, and DMV line. Ok. I hate to admit it God but having it at the DMV and the doctor’s office kind of rocks. But really God? Even after the global devastation of the television, why would you invent a cute little billion dollar invention that demands the opposite of its name, giving even less face time in interacting with other people?
I appreciate the disappearance of MySpace which meant I no longer had to also worry about song selection for my profile that day but to be honest God that part I actually sort of liked. Would you consider putting the option for song selection in Facebook? Just sayin. Geeeeze. But with Face book we can't get enough of it. Even grandma is posting her irregularity problems on my feed page. Pictures, posts, videos by the millasecond! Now I have this business that you encouraged me to open, The Grateful Pantry, and the Face book pressure is even worse than Justin Beiber's facebook manager. I've got to be posting pictures, videos, advice, fun, what I'm eating, what I'm not eating, how I want to purchase this plug into my iPhone that makes it look like a phone from the the 90’s, but then I don’t even have an iPhone. All I have is this robot called Android. WTH God? Why would you give us tools to make us robots?
And don't even get me started on Facebooks’ out of town evil cousins. The modern day wicked witch I'm sure had something to do with inventing Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pintrist! So when loved ones complain that we're on our phones too long at the dinner table and encourage us to get off Facebook we have no problem stating, "I'm not. I'm tweeting!". We've got to send 65 tweets, posts, pictures, and videos a minute to stay connecting with other humans connected with an I V drip. You didn't tell us that did you God that when we downloaded the app it meant a metaphorical I V comes out of the adapter and injects itself through our vein in our wrist left to run our lives and determine when we eat, who we connect or won't be connecting with (usually our family members), and who we love who we hate all based off status comments. Our arguments and family fights aren't even left pure. We get to virtually walk into the hallways of our high school just after the bell and state our status as, "Some people just don't know how to treat another person right" and leave it blasted for all to see on their feed.
Then there's me God. A writer. Which is why I'm really writing you day right. I woke up Easter morning which was supposed to be the easter egg hunt of gratitude which I thought would be a great blog post yesterday, to share a family fun exercise of gratitude with the world. I didn't know at the time but my partner hid an engagement ring in the last of what was supposed to be 12 eggs I was supposed to be busy searching for rather than being on-line with social media trying to post the blog of how important it is to spend quality time with loved ones. I know God. Don't even go there. I get it.
But I was trying to share this really really great message to millions, ok well 120-121 loyal-ish fans on the Grateful Pantry Facebook page whom half will skim it, 6 will click and change their mind that they don't want to read on easter after all, leaving only my mother and 1.2 loyal fans to read this really really important message. Instead because A) I had to format with Wordpress on 3 different devices and thought I sent it out from my cell phone last night I instead woke up to a disappointing "WRONG AGAIN" blank blog post. So I had to go up to the laptop after working on my iPAD and cell phone to format it to be somewhat readable then once it successfully posted because I have "apps" on my cell phone and iPAD its normally easier to send it out from HootSuite (an app that send out to FB, TW, LI) but because there is a password issue for twitter and when I cut and copied my hyper link it didn't transfer with a thumbnail so no one would have opened it because remember we all scroll at 65 miles per hour and if it doesn't catch your interest in -.025 seconds then FORGET IT! ALL THAT TIME FORMATTING WAS ONLY TO TEST MY BEST ZEN UNATTACHED FROM THE RESULT BUDDHA CRAP.
So finally I get it Tweet-able, read-able, sink-able into all 6500 social media sites and my partner says it, "Why are you on that thing? It’s Easter. Can we just enjoy our morning?" after all what I was posting was something I was actually set to do with my loved one but because of this fucking blue bird app on my phone and his little friends hoot, my happy little suggestion for gratitude left me feeling more like plucking the feathers from a bird you thought should be cute since it says, "Tweet Tweet" but instead runs my life and IS THE VERY LINK THAT EITHER LEAVES ME FEELING HEARD OR LEFT IN THE DARK UNHEARD. At least if you’re making next to nothing. Oh wait. You’re right. I’m not making shit off this blog post. Well can I at least share a message with someone that might get some flippin insight or maybe empowerment, confidence, hope, or how about a little fricken enlightment, huh? Is that too much to ask God? Instead all I can think about is ripping off the wings of that little blue tweeting bird, stabbing pintrist in the eye with a facebook app, while pecking open the missing linked In to find the negative sign to make google plus negative, thus null and void. Good God. Help me.
I just want to write. I want to do what it is I do best. But for some reason, call it early abandonment issues, I also want to share it with someone in the hopes that we might connect. Please god don't tweet me the answer. I want to connect. Through books. Through being in rooms with live people that if I tweeted at them with my arms flapping and a fake beek pecking at them I would probably be asked to remove myself from the room with a straight jacket waiting for me in the hallway. But its ok to tweet someone on line? I'm not getting it. I like live humans. Real books. Sure I've read a couple on my iPAD and kindle. I guess they're ok for now. But I guess the question is; how do I go about doing what I do best when the logistics of keeping up with today's transportation slows down that process and ultimately leaves my hand choking. Have you ever felt like this? How do I manage it?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I’m going to meditate to download your message now. Geeeze.
I began meditation and set my phone to pandora (oh shit I know what your saying). It was already set on a station I had it on yesterday. The sound of music station was on and while I normally turn to my usually Native American flutes or meditation sounds I couldn't bear to turn the station once I hear what was playing.
Who could turn off musical notes to life's normal everyday conversations? First on was 16 going on 17 which sang about a girl at a critical point in her life taking a big step to think about dating. Is this really an essential part of my meditation God? I mean I know I didn’t exactly do the whole dating thing correctly when I was 17 but there’s gotta be more disgraceful way to lose your virginity than in a horse trailer. You know where I grew up. A horse trailer was practically considered a limo in big folk in the city terms. So why is it that I’m so intrigued with this particular song again? Oh yeah because anything in musical resembles how I hear and interpret my entire world so it makes more sense to me than when someone says, “Expense report”. I remember now.
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