Closing Facebook

With some relief, regret, and sadness, I deactivated my Facebook account yesterday morning. The decision to do this had been coming on for months with growing frustration over my inability to keep up in spite of the amount of time I spent there and with increasing partisan negativity and hate coming from both major parties. This FB page has been a valued part of my life for nearly 10 years as an important tool in my efforts to help the cause of peace and justice. I appreciate more than I can say the many FB friends who have supported my efforts and contributed their own: all those I have never met in person as well as those I know and will continue to be in touch with. Thanks and love to you all.  

The final trigger that propelled me to actually close it down was an argument with a FB friend about civility which failed to come to a satisfying conclusion. Although I had never met this person we had been having friendly, respectful, and supportive conversations for many months. But in this conversation I was feeling increasingly attacked about my views on the values of civility and then on my use of the term verbal violence to describe Trump's attacks on Mexicans, Muslims, media, handicapped, women and more. I wanted my use of the term to show how his kind of incivility encourages and enables the level of violence in the whole culture, and how returning it in kind escalates  conflicts as we get caught up in  vicious cycles. She claimed my use of the term was dangerous because it demeans victims of actual  physical violence to be told that Trump stating anything is actual violence. 

At this point, over 700 words into the conversation, I thought attempts to explain and defend myself against feelings of being attacked were not promoting understanding between us but were instead escalating conflict, and I bowed out of the conversation. 

This trigger is superficially trivial. By itself, it would not prompt me to give up the substantial benefits I knew from FB involvement. But it came at the end of months of self evaluation leading up to my 80th birthday about the best use of my fleeting time and energy. Today it feels like this action has opened up and expanded time. And at this time in my life my daily feelings, like never before, are reality.