social-media – Page 2

what I am is what I am

First of all, I’m a delight.
Second…
“Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box
Religion is the smile on a dog
I’m not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean”
– What I am, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians

This month, August 2025, I set out on a grand adventure – returning to the work I hold dear to my soul. Five contractor’s bags of trash, four carloads of donations, three shelves of books cleared, two stacks of totes, and a partridge in a pear tree later…this is what I have. (see pic below)

photo of a desk in a corner office with knick knacks

By the way, the gentlemen peering over my tripod is Thomas Merton, and he keeps watch over things. After Hildegard of Bingen and Joan of Arc, who are both also represented on my desk, Merton is my go to for finding calm in the world.

While I’m not particularly devoted to one particular faith system, the mystical aspects of my Catholic upbringing is this luminous thread that brings the tapestry of my beliefs together. In fact, I start my day with this prayer. Feel free to change the wording to suit your needs.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Author standing with a statue of Thomas Merton

Why, yes…that is Thomas Merton and I out standing in a field. It appears he’s been standing there a little longer than me, which has given him a nice patina.

So let me get back to my original thought when I say down to write…

Over the past 18 days I’ve learned that none of us are in Kansas anymore. Not that we ever were, but the expression fits. SEO, niche, content management, and other words that sound a lot like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Is everyone literally trying to sell themselves with every post/image/video? I mean, is this fun for you? When you sit down to create something are you thinking, “Oh, yeah, this is gonna boost my stats on (insert platform here)…yeah, this is S(E)O-OOOOO good.”

Maybe it was a little naive of me to think that I could just skip back into the creative world with my Pollyanna mindset, stories about being human, and a real desire for connection.

Oh, gods…does this mean I’m not cool anymore? Are the artificial stats trying to tell me something I don’t want to hear? Should I just go lay down in the yard, right now, and shake my fists at the clouds? Do you think people will know what I’m saying if I don’t keep to my most searched work?

Won’t someone think of the niche?

Okay…okay…that’s a little much, I know – but then again, so am I…and so are you. We – that’s you, me, and all the other humans out there – contain multitudes. And in that beautiful dance within us is a light that connects us to each other.

The everything in me sees the everything in you.

So I’m working on Part 4 of the painting story. I’ve got to write it without putting in any trigger words because the internet will get mad at me – which is proving to be very difficult. Plus, the editing team took the day off. The cats are napping, and the fairies just had some chocolate.

With that…I’m off.

Good day to all y’all,
~ KEU

If you find value in what I write, and want to support the team (aka the cats and fairies), please check out my ko-fi. Thanks!

Currently listening to: The Tales of KE Upton (Spotify playlist that has 22 hours of what I call “brain tunes”)
Currently reading: *taking a reading break for a few days

no cars go/can’t buy happiness

First of all, I’m a delight. Second, I’m between the click of the light and the start of the dream.

Image of a woman standing among religious icons and craft supplies.

Apparently when you post selfies it raises your engagement. Here’s an old photo of me before getting rid of 90% of the items seen behind me.

“Everything is the way it is because we’ve all agreed that’s the way it is.”
― Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl

I’m no stranger to controversy.

image of a newspaper with an article about an independent magazine called the underground

Picture it - the year was 1992 - we were in a place of geopolitical instability (as it seemingly always has been) and I had a dream. After seeing a few local “alternative” papers in cities near Western Kentucky University, it seemed like a great idea to start my own. I mean…it really was a good idea, but also not well planned. There were only 3 issues of The Underground, but during its time in print there was kick back from a local politician, who was running for some kind of office. Apparently he didn’t appreciate the candid editorial about his platform. This prompted a very strongly worded letter from him with legal words that he seemed pretty confidant using. Sadly he didn’t know that my Dad was a top-notch attorney specializing in various aspects of law, so my letter back had only three sentences: “Thank you for your interest in The Underground. I am sad to say that nothing written in the issue you reference is slander, but would actually be libel. The piece is permissible under the laws of the U.S. Constitution.”

The years came and went; planets rotated in the cosmos. It was 2003 and the world was dealing with geopolitical instability (wait - is this a pattern?), and a rise in populism and/or nationalism (is there nothing new under the Sun?).
* side note - my delicious use of wild punctuation should prove to you that nothing I write is done by AI.

Legit question here - do y’all think any lessons were learned when I decided to start up some zines? As you can see, the title of the one on the right has been blocked out. Why? Well, because the internet has eyes. If you get nothing from what I write/share/etc., please understand this: your digital footprint is everywhere.

Yet again there was pushback from the words and images I shared. You see, I am no stranger to controversy…and everything I write about is true.

As expected, which now that I think about it…maybe my soul manifested it to happen, the posts I wrote about the painting were throttled on specific platforms that shall not be named. Another tidbit of info for you, especially if you are trying to corner the market on your work, is that sites will “censor” your work if you mention any of their competitors. Ask me how I know.

“We are all stories in the end, just make it a good one eh?”
― From the series Doctor Who (Matt Smith)

Honestly, y’all, I’m just out here trying to get my groove back. Things I write aren’t always dished out with a side of crankiness about things that don’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Marketing folks love a good niche, and they pay companies to promote their wares/goods/service that tailor to a specific demographic. Its just…I worry that we are all going to become one-sided automatons allowing the system to homogenize creativity. I’ve been this way since forever, which led me to my first declared major in college - journalism (which I took way too seriously). By the second week of class I was ready to write my first expose, but we were stuck learning how to write obits instead. When the next week rolled around, we got the, “If it bleeds it leads” talk, which made me extremely frustrated at whatever “journalism” this guy was teaching.

College was not living up to my expectations, which at 18 was a very precocious thing to think…I mean…it’s literally just another cog in the wheel of adulthood.

But I digress…

When the time came to work on our first article, the professor gave a lecture on how our writing should sound like PR. WHAT?!?!?! Journalism students needed to know about Public Relations? Why was this person telling me such things? The horror didn’t stop there, as he continued with statements like, “You will be making politicians look good,” and “Your work has to sell the paper.”

So here I am, many years later, realizing how much truth that professor spoke. However, which is a word I’m fond of that also proves, yet again, that a real human is at the helm, I’ve never really been interested in taking the safe road. My life is a testament to those who have brains that ramble, hands that create, and spirits that dance in the liminal spaces. Maybe I’ll never get a 27 figure book deal, or a prestigious award for my writing — but what will happen is that my life will never be boring.

There are just far too many stories to tell; way too many moments to capture.

I’m currently working on the next installment on the painting. Trying to fit several months of time into a few paragraphs is proving to be a little more difficult than anticipated. Plus, the typo fairies are low on cream and chocolate, which means they have sent the cats to help with my editing. Never a dull moment in my life…

Much love,
~ KEU

Currently listening to: The Tales of KB (my ever-changing writing playlist on Spotify
Currently reading: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle

the fear of leaving the book of face

First, I am a delight. Second, we are all just walking each other home…

image of a bald faced hornet getting a drink with feral bees

“I suppose the other thing too many forget is that we were all stories once, each and every one of us. And we remain stories. But too often we allow those stories to grow banal, or cruel or unconnected to each other. We allow the stories to continue, but they no longer have a heart. They no longer sustain us.”
― Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl

While this could start with all the platitudes about how doing hard things make us stronger, or that we only “grow” when life pushes us from our comfort zones, no one needs that kind of rhetoric on a beautiful Saturday morning. Thing is, I’m currently doing it with a daily meditation on if I need this or that thing, releasing all that I allowed to hold me back – except for the biggest shift…the one that seems to draw opinions from the voices in the Greek chorus.

I want to leave Facebook, along with the other platforms in the Metaverse.

You can barely turn around without finding an article about the dangers of social media – particularly Facebook – and how we would all be better without it invading our lives. As someone with a background in providing support for others, I agree with that sentiment fully but am having trouble with applying it to my life.

This issue has nothing to do with seeking attention, worrying about missing out, or that people won’t be able to find my work. It’s that I’ve given myself too much time in a world that goes against my personal set of ethics. Being there gives me this creepy feeling of not being authentic – of wanting to write/create/post something that gives an accurate depiction of how I live my life that also gets to the top of a timeline.

Like, y’all, I’ve sat in front of the “delete your account” option in some kind of weird meditative state until deciding that one more day will be okay. I literally threw out 20-some-odd years of journals, gave away all my old art supplies, filled my car 3 times with things to donate, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of the one thing that causes me the most problems.

Today there’s a full Moon in Aquarius, and as it was rising during the night, dreams came to me on the beams of light shining through my window. These were not my usual symbolic brain shows, but more like pictorial manifestos on letting go of what holds me back. When I woke it felt as if I’d just finished the iron man version of talk therapy — and with every fiber of my being I knew it was time to walk away from the Metaverse for a little while. It’s a wee bit scary, but also exciting. There are some really good things on the horizon that need my full attention, so it will be good to be free of that particular distraction.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

If you’ve left Facebook/the Metaverse, I would love to hear your story. What I’ve heard from others so far is that their lives became infinitely better. Or, if you have thoughts about social media in general, please feel free to share those, too.

Much love,
~ KEU

take a shower and shine your shoes

Everything I’m about to tell you is true…
First of all, I am a delight. Second, I’m on season 8 of Supernatural - which makes for some interesting background noise.

“Often, moreover, it is…that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable, that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

Yesterday I began the process of untangling myself from the Meta-verse. After a year of waffling, it was time to take for taking steps toward the exit.

While I thought rainbows would cover the sky while winged kittens brought me magic jelly beans on golden trays, it was just kind of sad. Because my brain likes to do these things, I did a rough estimation of how much time I devoted to Haus of Zuck.

First, I did take some time off of FB/IG for about a year. There were life shenanigans, and time was precious. According to the stats from my phone, on a usual day I average about 1.5 hours of scrolling. In 2006 I started using FB – and with one year off, that would be 18 years of using the platform. We all know how many days are in a year, but I’m gonna use 360 due to times of illness/days of not looking at my phone.

What we have now is 1.5 (hours) multiplied by 360 (days), which equals 540 hours per year. Let’s multiply that number by 19, which brings us to 10,260 hours of time…or roughly 427.5 days.

427.5 days.

Uh…what? Like that’s a full year of non-stop scrolling (and all I got was this neck cramp and repetitive motion issues).

This is a sobering number, and it’s going to take me a little bit to process the reality of it. What was I hoping to find, and how did it make my life better? I could have walked to each of the coastlines in the United States, or hiked the Appalachian Trail. Better yet I could have just gone into my community to see if people needed help instead of watching life move along my screen.

In a delightful brain squirrel moment, I gotta say that the amount of times Supernatural subtly breaks the 4th wall brings me a ton of joy. Also, I couldn’t remember how to spell “subtly” for a hot minute. Thank goodness the internet came to my rescue. (I say dryly with my eyes starting to look upward)

Okay, so, after seeing that number – and y’all feel free to check my arithmetic on that – I’m gonna go outside and stare at some trees.

But first, some haiku…

becoming awake
push button enlightenment
some random verses

As a gentle reminder, typo fairies live with me. I promise you that my editing skills are good, but somehow once I hit “publish” everything goes haywire.

Much love,
~ KEU