Upgrading from an Offline Life

"I've never had any use for blogs."

- Davy

Alas, here I am.

It's been two years since I stopped using Facebook. I stopped using in part because it contributed to a massive social misunderstanding, in part because most of my "friends" were not really friends but acquaintances (friends of friends, classmates or friends with whom I no longer communicated).

A lot has happened since then. Outside of my own life, Facebook was featured in The Social Network and this more deeply entrenched my distaste for all social networking. Facebook also has become more obviously associated with commerce; many companies have pages and are shamelessly begging for "likes".

Within my personal life I had a 1.5 year "hiatus" from university immediately following the aforementioned social misunderstanding. In the mean time I have been working in different places. I did write some music which I posted to MySpace but, lacking inspiration, removed it.

Now that I am back in school, I am maintaining acceptable grades without too much stress or strain. I am still as interested in music (and perhaps more knowledgeable) as I was in the summer of 2010 - if not more.

But it's not enough to have one demanding (and occasionally expensive) hobby. I have a Nikon that I could use more. I have a great handheld video camera that could be used for many things. I've started excercising. These things are all great - but they are too independent.

I'm difficult to place socially. While I've had great success with a select number of people and maintain very healthy relationships with my family, I'm still not comfortable with making the effort to talk to people in a way that is not strictly professional or strangerly.

What I've decided to do is increase my social presence online. For that last few years, my lifestyle and interests could practically fit on a sticky note. While I readily accept the limitations and criticisms of social networking and am skeptical about how healthy it is for personal relationships, I also feel that the internet is the biggest pond I have access to.

So I'm getting caught up on the online scene....

1. I've revived my Facebook account and whittled down my friends list to those who give a damn.
2. I've revived my twitter account and hope it can be useful in finding (hopefully interesting) people.
3. I've joined StumbleUpon as a means for broadening, understanding, deepening my interests.
4. I've started using Flickr and Facebook Photos to spread some of my photographs (using Adobe Lightroom 3 to publish to each).
5. I'm using YouTube as a viewer at present but with my handheld video camera, there are some interesting opportunites there.
6. I'm using Blogger to fill in some of the gaps and to offer anyone who is interested some results in each of these new endeavors.

I'll have to be very careful not to let these things go stale. The only way these things work is if they're maintained.

-Davy