Quiet

In December 2021, I went to Joshua Tree for my holiday break. I stayed at a friend’s ranch just outside the national park. I hiked, bathed in the sun, and climbed some rocks.

A friend of mine met up with me for a few days, and we decided to, as one does, take some mushrooms.

During that journey, I watched young yucca plants die and grow within seconds in front of my eyes. The large rocks in the distance morphed into bread loaves, then dinosaurs. The tall Joshua Trees cast shadows resembling ski lifts in the desert. It was so, so, so quiet and peaceful, and I tried to not perturb the silence.

Every mushroom trip has left me with one valuable insight, or one big take-away. The one from Joshua Tree told me: I don’t want to scream into the void anymore.

Up until then, most of my screaming was on Twitter. Something would happen in my life. I would craft a witty 280-character tweet, and fling it in the universe. The algorithm would get to work. People would like it. Retweet it. Quote tweet. Every engagement I got made me feel validated and anxious. Sometimes, an offhand tweet would go viral, and I watched with glee as my follower count grew.

After that vacation, I started thinking twice about tweeting. The time I spent on Twitter diminished drastically. When I left Twitter last summer, I also let go of my biggest social media following yet: at that point in time, for whatever reason, over 22,000 people cared about what I had to say. I realized that during the years I hosted The Writers’ Co-op, that being a talking head about the business of freelancing made me feel like I had to yell in order to stay relevant for my brand. When I realized that yelling online didn’t align with my new values anymore, I decided to wind down the podcast.

Since quitting Twitter, I can’t really bring myself to use anything that resembles that app anymore: I never joined Threads, but I created a BlueSky account, which I basically never use. My life post Twitter has been infinitely quieter, more peaceful, more intentional. I spend my work days laser-focused on the tasks at hand. I have more capacity to care about the things that matter. Algorithms no longer dictate how or what I feel.

Over the past few weeks, I published two stories: one is an essay about how feeding myself during backpacking long trails changed my relationship with food. Another, I spent the bulk of last year working on: it’s about a group of federal scientists who are protecting communities from volcanic hazards. I shared both on my LinkedIn, and a few Facebook and Slack groups I’m a part of. But besides that, I don’t have a social media strategy anymore. (If you’re discovering these pieces from my newsletter, I’d love if you helped share and amplify these pieces if you wish!)

A friend of mine asked yesterday how people were reacting to my volcano feature. I paused, then I told her I had no idea, largely because I’m not on Twitter anymore to see how my story performed. Instead, the validation I’ve received has been personal and direct. I’ve received some fan mail through my website. When I sent the article to my media contact at the observatory, I was told that folks I talked to were really pleased with the final product. My editor told me that my story generated over 1 million clicks on Apple News and more than 2 million reading minutes.

I am not sure if I will ever have it in me to be loud again. Not loud in the same way that I used to be, online. But when I think about it, I’m not even sure if being loud benefits me. Rather than adding value to my life, all it did was boost my follower count and a false sense of validation.