Almost made it years ago … I’m a recovered alcoholic and one of my recovery options was to be admitted into a facility but I wasn’t that far gone yet so I was able to go through lighter treatment services and go through the 12 step program instead … that was over 30 years ago and these days I feel like I’m edging towards losing my sanity again every day.

I only made the comparison of social media to a mental hospital because just about every day I see more and more deluded realities than ever before. At one end, I have my younger relatives (under 30 years of age) living some kind of weird online life that they try to emulate like a k-pop reality show, a soap opera or a comedy show with a laugh track (meanwhile their real life situation is anything but) … and at the other end, I have older relatives (over 50 years of age) who only ever want to be angry, afraid or semi or fully racist or fascist (when in real life their lives are good peaceful and they would never be openly racist or fascist, or show any support for it!). People keep telling me that maybe it’s just the quality of people I am around … but I look into other social media feeds with family who live in the cities down south, the rural areas, the northern remote areas or the busy suburban areas and its almost all universally the same. And I know a variety of people … poor trailer trash types, northern poor people, native families living on reserves … as well as middle class white people living in cities, upwardly mobile professionals, teachers, office workers, government workers, a few medical doctors and nurses and even a couple of millionaires who live in the city.

I should also clarify that these observations are all about corporately owned social media … and yes I know that they are heavily influenced and managed to be like this … but still, it feels so overwhelming that at one point, it does feel like being trapped in some kind of institution. Sure I can leave but all or most of my family and friends are in there. Most of the people I know are not technically savvy or interested and they just prefer being on FB, IG or TikTok or even X … and whenever I do see them there, I feel like I’m visiting the FB Ward or the TikTok Ward of a giant facility full of deluded people.

Might as well be … you have no idea of the sadness I feel. I am completely normal, I go about my work and I do the things I always did before … on the outside everything is perfectly normal. Unfortunately, my mind, my thoughts and my perception of the world has changed … I no longer feel the same sense of joy and happiness of doing things … I always go back to thinking of the person I lost and how she is not here any more … it’s pervasive and deep. I feel like someone has draped a big heavy wet blanket over me and it hangs on me all the time. And yes … the colors of the world don’t seem to be as bright any more … they don’t fill me with the same awe and happiness they once did. They do cheer me up but it’s like lighting a tiny candle in a deep dark cave.

I’ve lost lots of people in my life … my brother, my aunts and uncles … friends from my age group, friends who were older, friends who were younger … my grandparents … both my parents … and I’ve handled all those with a lot acceptance and understanding … I lived through them with my wife who supported me through all of it … but this … this is like having your soul removed and you feel like you are operating your body like an empty vessel. Life feels very mechanical now … I go about doing things like I always did but everything is without meaning now and I constantly wonder why I am doing anything.

My wife of 30 years died a few months ago and I’m having to adjust to life without her.

Life is freakin weird now … I feel like some kind of ghost that doesn’t exist … I feel like a big part of my life died with her and at the same time I feel like I’m alive but not fully … I’m alive but not fully … I feel like part of me disappeared but I didn’t die … quite honestly, sometimes I feel like a ghost that didn’t fully cross over and I’m stuck in this life until I can move on.

I have a ton of supports, family and friends, work and things to do and I keep very busy with stuff … but all of it just doesn’t mean much to me any more.

And family and friends keep telling me I have all the freedom in the world to do whatever I want … but you know what? … life is no longer enjoyable when you don’t have the person you want to share everything with. I had so many plans and things I really, really wanted to do … but now it’s all meaningless and pointless … I have no real enjoyment for many things any more. Even turning on the TV to watch something, anything no longer really thrills me and I watch something for a few minutes, my mind wanders and I have to go do something else. I go online and it’s the same thing, I read part of something and I have to move on to the next thing … I play video games and I can’t concentrate on it for too long.

About the only thing left to me now is riding my motorcycle but I can’t even do that because the weather is still too cold here in northern Ontario … so I can’t even enjoy that.

And in the meantime, I have to watch the world burn … life is just very strange for me at the moment.

Every time you find out the reasons why or figure out the criteria of why the ban is in place for any book … the Christian Bible should also be banned for the same reasons.

That’s one of the great things about switching to Linux … it forces you to learn something new and for kids that is a very good thing.

All those kids in the school that OP described were getting stagnant in a settled environment of living in Windows … now that they have Linux in front of them, they will go on to learn how to subvert the system under Linux. It’s not a bad thing in my opinion, it will create a whole crop of kids who now know how to fool around with Windows AND Linux.

I wish someone would have introduced me to Linux when I was kid.