My life has become eerily minimal.

I just can't do social media. It causes my neurospicy mind to dwell in depressed, stressful places that remind me of all I've missed out on and all I continue to miss out on. Then I spend huge amounts of time trying to catch up on things I was only aware of the need to catch up on because of social media.

Social media is, I think, one of five of the big non-chemical addictions. The other four are sex, gambling, video games, and conflict. Boy, is that last one seductive. The need to expose the retinas and eardrums to provocations and outrages that get the cortisol flowing, the adrenaline pumping, and the teeth grinding.

So I turn away from screens for everything but reading a book where the screen can create bigger text for these old, tired eyes. When I'm not reading, I write on two sides of a sheet of cardstock looking for a meaning or a situation or a story in one small thing that I see, hear, do, or think. And okay, taste, touch, or smell, but somehow those three senses don't usually trigger a piece of writing.

What does it mean these days to do little else but read books, stories, essays, and poems, and write brief pieces on two sides of a piece of cardstock and do little else? I love writing letters and often in the middle of one, my focus on one small thing will take hold. Right now, I just focus on this thought, the way that William S. Burroughs believed in focusing on that one small piece of lunch naked on the fork.

I am seeing what a life is devoted to little else besides looking, listening, reading, thinking, and writing. I don't see or hear influencers trying to get me to buy something or do something or vote for someone. I just look, listen, read, think, and write.

I publish my microscopic fragments of thought on derekleif.org. I will be lucky if five people read my website writings, so be it. At least there are five.

Perhaps I can influence them to consider not doing something they don't want to do, not buying something they don't want to own, and not voting for someone they don't want to follow. I just want to influence them to look, listen, read, think, and write. If anyone does this because of me, so much the better.