works of wanderlust

It’s December and for me that means it is “blog every day month” an effort for which I have long since concocted a list of blog-able reflective topics called my December-ish posts each of which should do little more than offer a leaping off point for some rambling writing to fill up my daily blogging quota.

Today that topic is…

What did you want this year
…but not get?

It was something ineffable. 

Because all I really wanted this year was some kind of reassurance, clinging to the frosty winter air, that the raw stupid of modern society might be waning, that people have started to see through the fog of misinformation and impending societal collapse and are maybe, possibly, hopefully doing something about it.

I know that the new year tends to be a time of resolution and change, and while we’re all renewing our gym memberships and swearing off chocolate for a few weeks, it should also be a time of a bigger reflection on the habits that have a much bigger impact on how we will live our lives in the coming year. 

I did not get the thing I wanted most which was the waking up of the world to the dizzying harms of social media upon our world. I would tell you that I have logged off from corporate social sites about 85% completely. I still lurk occasionally. I still troll through Threads and Bluesky to see what a few of my friends are posting. I still occasionally treat Reddit like my morning paper while I sip my coffee. I still maintain a Youtube fever for political commentary. I updated Instagram on the daily while we were on vacation and still have a half dozen accounts that show up in my profile. 

Yet, I did not log onto Facebook once in 2025. Not once! And I deleted my twitter account fully and completely this past year, too. I steer clear of the crazier platforms entirely. I won’t even name those: if you know you know.

Here’s the thing tho: I thought something was true and I was not entirely correct: I thought that if we, the prolific posters, stopped posting then the people who came to those sites to simply witness our participation might … you know… lose interest. Leave. Quit social. But no. It turns out that between AI slop and propaganda engines and meme generators and marketplace listings most people are hooked like fish on the line and are slowly being reeled into a life of inescapable doomscrolling participation. They kept the apps, but stopped looking for their friends. Now they attend for the shit show.

Worst of all, my province (while it may not have led the charge this year) had a giant float in the crazy parade. The mindless reposting of everything from political nationalist reactionism to medical misinformation means we have a local government bigger than their own britches who is is using antidemocratic tools to strip away basic human rights and a populous who has generated an eighteenth century style fear of medicine so strong that we brought back a near-extinct disease. Sadly, I know enough people cheering this all on that it breaks me a little bit more each time I hear it.

I admit. Every year or so I vow to step away from social media, and realistically I don’t think it will ever fully happen.  But there is something ineffable and important about the way I still work quietly behind the scenes, online and on my own platforms, to keep my voice… and my sanity… a further step away with each attempt.  I continued to strengthen that resolve in 2025 but I still never really got it to where I wanted it to be. It never really landed. Maybe it never will. It’s forever worth the effort, tho.

Next year? I have my typical list of new resolutions for 2026: Read more. Write more. Swim more. Eat better. You know, the standard sort of being better stuff. But nestled in there somewhere is the vibe that I plan to take yet another step further from those dank platforms and keep fostering my own personal voice somewhere else. Where that all leads? I don’t know, but I do know that each year it is less about screaming into the void and more about hanging onto reality with every ounce of strength. 

I don’t know that it will get me the sense of hope that I am yearning for so desperately, but I do think that in the trying there is something important and resolute. Worth seeking, even if I never actually find it.