Let’s Get Fit: Billie Best Blog

Hope you can get through this. Hold on to your hats and your hearts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. However, life is great with my cohabitants. Everything is fine here. People here are friendly. It was such a contrast to the drama I saw on screen and it really made me wonder what was real. Physical connections remind me that the digital world is often a deeply false world. When I spend too much time online, I start to become negative. So, let’s get some exercise. This is one way to restore our confidence in the future. This is a smart move.

This is contrast. When I go to the grocery store, people are polite. There is always a tall person helping me reach the jar on the top shelf. I’m not afraid to approach a tall person and ask. I went to the clinic for a mammogram and everyone there was great too. This was the least painful pumping I’ve ever had! The people at the dog park are friendly. We talk about our dogs and the park because we have something important in common. I recently returned my new glasses because they were giving me headaches and the ladies at the optometrist’s office were very helpful. We went to a Mexican restaurant to eat and we ended up alive. Who knows?

There are indeed many good people around us, but it’s hard to tell online. On social media, bots blur reality into manipulation. I remember when I first joined Facebook in 2009, after my husband died, a snowstorm that winter swept the snow down the sides of my house. It took me an hour shoveling to get to the barn to feed the cows. Shortly after I posted this dilemma on Facebook, people from around town came to my house with snow shovels to help me. Today, that rescue probably wouldn’t happen because most of my Facebook friends can’t see my posts. There is an algorithm between us that measures your interest in the keywords in my posts. If you haven’t shown interest in me or snow recently, it’s unlikely that my post about needing help shoveling snow will show up in your feed. This is why we need physical relationships more than ever. Social media used to be a reliable network. But it’s no longer reliable.

Life hacks! I saw more friends, more acquaintances and more strangers. Hug more. Expand my network of face-to-face relationships. Make an effort to meet new people. I am taking a class in a physical classroom with other learners present. Go to a meeting at a physical public library. Joined a discussion group where people sit in a room around a table and discuss a specific topic. A recent theme is “Fuck Pink,” which invites cancer survivors to share stories of bravery and pain in care. These interactions opened my mind. I wash my hair more often! In the days following the group discussion, my brain engages in thought exchange and checks in on my own ideas. Because I will see these people again. We are talking. We are drinking coffee or eating together. This is how our relationship evolved. Talking together is how we change our minds. Conversation is a skill. I want to be great at this.

Half a century ago, when they started teaching us about pollution in schools, I saw how many businesses thought the idea of ​​pollution was just propaganda. They say pollution is not a problem because the earth has the ability to absorb our wastewater and excrement and it will all disappear naturally. Then, the 1969 Lake Erie fire happened, and it wasn’t so easy for polluters to convince the public that pollution wasn’t the real problem. I think the cultural moment we’re in is a lot like Lake Erie on fire. Digital pollution matters. Globally, people are dealing with massive social media pollution, and it doesn’t seem to be going away naturally. People are burned by lies. Physical relationships are one way to put out the flames.

Look into other people’s eyes and update your social feeds. Get out of your bubble. Ancient tribes walked hundreds of miles to be with other tribes, with new people, because they understood the value of diversity for their food supply, their plants and seeds, their children, and their knowledge. Diversity is a survival mechanism. This is why farmers rotate crops. This is why financial advisors recommend mixed investment portfolios. That’s why you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. This is why you can’t survive on cheese. This is why companion planting is an effective strategy for gardeners. This is why marrying your sibling is a bad idea. Variety increases your resilience.

To me, the great irony of this letter is that I am typing on a screen and you are reading on a screen. I will post this on a few social media outlets and then I will return to those posts to respond to comments. I would scroll through my feed and get frustrated with everything the bots were pushing at me, and I would delete hacks I found on my own pages. I have a digital life. Both of my novels are about the lives of robots. I’m fascinated by technology. My focus on my body is about regaining the balance I lost when physical relationships were prevented during the pandemic. I see more clearly than ever the cost of this isolation. It creates some bad habits. So, for the sake of my mental health, my personal safety, and the simple beauty of it all, I’m doubling down on my investment in physical relationships. What a nice person to be. Let’s keep it that way. Let’s get physical.