I’ve spent much of the day watching a long running process on a distant server farm slowly report onward progress. It’s been interesting - wanting to find better things to do, but not wanting to look away, should it mysteriously run off the rails as computers tend to when given the chance.
While half watching progress bars eat their way across the screen, pixel by pixel, I scooted across the room to “the other desk”, and began opening browser tabs at WhatsApp, Threads, BlueSky and Substack. The four horses of my procrastination apocalypse at the moment.
The social networks seemed to be filled with friends in the US trying to avoid broadcast television, and half of their extended family - posting a tidal wave of the same sort of hate they were complaining about. I scrolled for some time - looking for traces of normal life - of little things - acts of kindness - moments of happiness - they were hard to come by.
I’m still looking - still trying to carve out a quiet corner, filled with at least a little normality.
I’m fortunate in having a small circle of distant friends I can call upon from time to time. Sometimes our conversations flow from day to day, and sometimes we vanish for weeks or months at a time. It never seems to matter - it turns out “hello” erases time and distance remarkably quickly.
While writing this I have some music playing - Carole King just started singing “You’ve got a friend”. It’s oddly fitting.