tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6496460488742488789.post7005604972519014906..comments2024-03-18T10:29:46.055+00:00Comments on Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: Sipping at the Bad ThingsKen Armstronghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07775956557261111127noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6496460488742488789.post-88812767226286800142018-12-26T18:40:30.970+00:002018-12-26T18:40:30.970+00:00I've recently come to the same conclusion. I q...I've recently come to the same conclusion. I quit Facebook, and I feel much better for that, but I've now also started reading less news because it's the same stuff over and over and I just get absorbed with being angry or sad, so I've cut back.<br /><br />I read the free papers in the morning and a couple of news websites and in the time that's been freed up I've started reading novels again - I never stopped buying them, but for quite a while I've just been building up a backlog of titles that I was planning on getting to. Well, now I'm getting to them, and I'm enjoying it - and I'm enjoying taking a break from the red mist that certain public figures kept bringing down on me. I was struggling to take pleasure in just being me, and that had to end, so I'm indulging in the simple pleasures again.<br /><br />I'm having to ration my Twitter habit too, because poisoning yourself a little bit for pleasure (which is all drink, drugs and cigarettes is about) is much harder to curtail when it's ingested directly into the mind. I still visit, but I'm more particular about what threads I follow. I don't know how long I'll be able to restrain myself for, but I'm happier avoiding spending time in Bedlam. I just hope this isn't merely the ignorance of bliss.Juleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10282029770260743079noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6496460488742488789.post-87248291945398618112016-11-30T03:50:50.670+00:002016-11-30T03:50:50.670+00:00Preaching to the choir, Ken, preaching to the choi...Preaching to the choir, Ken, preaching to the choir. A couple of weeks back I closed my Twitter account. I’ve never been able to make sense out of it from the very first day and got no joy whatsoever from it so why’m I doing it? Because someone somewhere along the line told me I needed it and I wasn’t taking my career as a writer seriously if I didn’t fully engage in the social media circus. Well, Ken, I’m a serious person. I take <i>everything</i> seriously even when I’m taking the piss out of it but I felt like with Twitter I was sitting on the floor with a massive bag of fortune cookies breaking them open one by one looking for the one that pleased me. Some automated thingy I don’t even remember subscribing to has been sending out tweets for me for years but other than that I doubt I’ve written more than five or six myself. Blogs I get. Facebook I get even though I do get why it’s not been a fun place to be the for the past few months but Twitter was a chore and I’m done with chores. I’d like to be done with Facebook too. I <i>am</i> done with the Facebook app—I use something called Tinfoil which is a bit more bearable—but I do get something out of it from time to time if only reminders that you’ve put up a new post although I have Feedly to tell me about them.<br /><br />You can’t stop people talking about what interests or concerns them and that’s what friends are for, to listen to us moan and to listen to us when we find something worth moaning about. What’s depressed me about the goings on recently is the unreliability of what’s being reported. I am interested in world news and a new US president <i>is</i> something we all will be affected by so it is newsworthy but after the fiasco that was the last presidential election I honestly don’t know who to believe. And clearly the voting public didn’t either. <br /><br />You’ll probably notice I don’t often post on Facebook. I <i>do</i> post but only after giving the matter some thought: <i>Is what I’m going to say going to be of interest to at least</i> some <i>of my friends?</i> Unfortunately I can’t (or I least I don’t know how to) direct a message to just a subsection of my friends. It’s one, if I post on his or her timeline, or all and that’s usually enough to stop me. But a post every few weeks is enough to let people know I’m alive and kicking. If only everyone took a similar stance, eh? One of the things I <i>do</i> like about Facebook are the ‘like’ buttons now that they’ve been expanded and make a bit more sense because there’re times when words are hard to come by even for the likes of me and all that’s required is a ‘touch’. Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6496460488742488789.post-22424689362746311852016-11-27T16:33:10.348+00:002016-11-27T16:33:10.348+00:00Thank you, Ken. This may help us all.
Carl Ingall...Thank you, Ken. This may help us all.<br />Carl IngallsAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08009590663599050573noreply@blogger.com