Bootstrap Paradox

Posts here have been more scant than initially expected. My writer's block has forced me to just pick a topic and run with it. So if you have no interest in theoretical time travel phenomena, this post may not be your cup of tea.

The bootstrap paradox has always been fascinating to me. It is a staple of the sci-fi genre and when done correctly, can be an extremely satisfying and gripping plot. However, the concept itself can be quite trippy.

The bootstrap paradox is essentially a set of dependent actions that form a time loop with no discernible external origin. The episodes rely on each others existence. Here's an example:

I wake up this morning and open the new book I just got in the mail. I begin to read and realize the main character is having the exact same morning that I had. Eerily similar. Too similar. And the scariest part of all, when the main character takes the metro to work, she accidentally gets pushed onto the tracks by the crowds and dies.

I try to brush it off but little details of the book keep coming true. This continues happening until I accept that my future has been foretold and I hang back just in time, avoiding the dramatic situation that surely would have led to my death.

Inspired by this episode, I devote my life to quantum mechanics and theoretical physics and end up being part of a group that discovers time travel. After going to back to meet George Washington and getting into a heated argument on whether killing Hitler would create a reality-ending paradox, I get permission to investigate my clairvoyant savior.

I go back to the day the book was published only to discover that the author doesn't exist! Panicked, I resolve to publish the book myself. In fact, I brought my own life-saving copy and transcribe it and insure it gets published. I then arrange events so that 2018 Katie orders the book and gets it in the mail on the exact day of my almost death.

I thus save my own life. Just as my life was saved by a previous me.

This begs two mind-bending questions.

One, who originally wrote the book? I was the one that published it but I used the copy that I had received in the mail. Which was theoretically published by a former Katie who was transcribing from her copy. The book has plot and characters and dialogue. Whose mind did those ideas originate from?

Two, how did it become known that I would die that morning? I was saved because a future me (that had already been saved) lived to go back in time to create the events that would save me.

Essentially, I published the book that saved my life so that I could go on to publish the book that would save my life... and on it goes. The two points in time play off of each other. Like two boards that lean towards a middle point and support one another.

Now that I think about it, the bootstrap paradox is similar to a self-fulfilling prophesy. Ancient mythology purports that merely knowing future events, locks those events into place. The information you get ahead of time leads you to act in a way that ultimately makes the prophesy come true.

The bootstrap paradox is more complex because it is not just knowledge at play. Future events affect past events. And past events always affect future events- this is true of our current reality. So when past can affect future and future can affect past, events on a timeline (or a string of related events) become a loop.

Additionally, while you may want to escape a bad prophesy, a bootstrap paradox generally serves a purpose. You are following your own lead, after all. Self-fulfilling prophesies cannot be escaped. Bootstraps paradoxes should not be escaped.

Interestingly, Harry Potter contains both time phenomena. In Order of the Phoenix, we learn that by assuming Harry was the wizard to defeat him in a prophesy, Voldemort ends up giving Harry the power that would ultimately defeat him. This was a self-fulfilling prophesy: the knowledge of future events reversing to affect past events. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry gets the confidence he needs to complete a difficult defensive spell because he already saw himself (a future version who traveled to the past) do the spell. He saves himself so that he can live a few more hours to go back in time and save himself. This is a bootstrap paradox- actual future events affecting past events which will in turn feed into those future events.

So, why does all of this matter? It doesn't. Time travel doesn't exist and it's fairly safe to say it never will. If time travel exists anywhere in history, it by nature would exist in all of history. And even if it did, time may be way more linear and brittle than all of this.

Paradoxes may be too complex to hold their shape or may reset naturally. For example, I invent time travel, go back in time, step on a butterfly, accidentally divert the series of events that would lead to my birth, and so I (and the invention of time travel) wink out of existence. The Marty McFly effect, essentially.

Anyway, now you know about the bootstrap paradox. You're welcome.

Going Vegan

A few weeks ago, I began transitioning to a vegan diet. I've been wanting to cut down my meat consumption for a while now. In the weeks before my 25th birthday, I began experiencing some existential dread. Mind you, existential dread is practically one of my personality traits. However, the milestone naturally intensified some of these feelings.

It may seem small but I kept thinking about how I could no longer claim I was in my "early 20s" and had to recategorize myself as "mid-20s." A minor distinction in actuality. But the ticking clock has a funny way of messing with our perceptions. Existential panic sprinkled like a perverse fairy dust gives us all age dysmorphia. 

Anyway, my someday plans became today plans. One of those plans was to try my hand at veganism. Well, a plant based diet (ish) to be more particular. If you are curious about the differences between plant based and vegan, you can learn about it here. But I've been using the term "vegan" because there is generally a frame of reference for that label.

When I tell people about my plan, one question always follows: why? It is not a judgmental or a condescending question. So far, it has been natural curiosity. There are many different types of people who forgo meat and animal byproducts. Which kind am I?

So, I've decided to outline my reasons here. Partly, to project my thoughts on the subject. Mostly, to solidify and record those thoughts so that when my resolve begins to strain, I have a list to return to. Full disclosure: my concrete goal is to stay vegan until September 1st and then evaluate. I have a feeling, though, that I'll never return to my same eating habits in relation to meat and cheese. 

1) Physical health. It's no secret that meat and cheese are bad for you. Sure, we are omnivores, evolutionarily, but our bodies are just not designed to eat this much meat and cheese. It's bad for your blood pressure. It's bad for your cholesterol. It's linked to cancer. There are 101 health reasons to reduce your intake of meat and dairy. Some doctors argue that cutting them out entirely can add years to your life. 

I'm lucky that my youth has protected me so far. Despite my current consumption, my numbers are inexplicably good. But I'm in my mid-20s now. Even if I don't stay vegan, a total reset like this will make it easier to reduce my consumption on the other end of this challenge.

2) Mental health. Dairy can seriously impact your mood. In this article, the author says, "Dairy’s protein casein, has not only been linked to addiction that makes it hard to give up, but also aggression, depression, and even anger."

Weirdly enough, this isn't just something I added to my list when researching health benefits. I actually noticed severe drops in my mood on the afternoons following a cheesy lunch. If you know me, you know that I need to take my moods seriously. Dairy was bumming me out, which is one of the biggest reasons I chose to explore veganism, not just vegetarianism. 

3) The animals. First off, I'm no animal lover. My indifference towards dogs (verging on distaste) has proved to be one of my most off-putting and alienating qualities. I do enjoy well-behaved cats. Bill Bryson has a funny quote in his book Neither Here Nor There that adequately sums up my thoughts: "It wouldn't bother me in the least if all the dogs in the world were placed in a large sack and taken to some distant island - Greenland springs attractively to mind - where they could romp around and sniff each other's anuses to their hearts' content and would never bother or terrorize me again. The only kind of dog I would excuse from this roundup is poodles. Poodles I would shoot."

After hearing this, many would be surprised to find I have a "save the animals" instinct. I certainly wouldn't consider it one of my active causes. But none the less, I find my compassion towards animals increasing every year. I consider the concept of zoos barbaric. I've come to view horseback riding (especially for sport) as unnecessarily abusive- horses may be treated with exceptional love and care by their owners, but any subjugated horse must first be "broken." I cannot for the life of me understand the cultural phenomenon that dictates that hanging the lifeless corpse of an animal on your wall is an aesthetic and not psychopathic. 

All of that aside, the disturbing turn our agriculture industry has taken is horrifying to contemplate. Animals live their entire lives crammed on top of each other, never seeing the light of day, pegged to the floor. 

It's not even the killing. I accept the circle of life and all that. It's that we bring animals forth into this world, torture them, and then use them. Take out the middle moral crimes, and I'd be fine with the system. 

You can read about the horrors on your own time. I could write 100 posts on the awful things animals go through before they become food and it still wouldn't even scratch the surface. Just google "treatment of dairy cows" and see what comes up. 

4) The environment. The agricultural industry is really hard on the environment. First, animal agriculture takes up a lot of land and resources. Second, it creates a lot of air and water pollution. Third, it uses up an extraordinary amount of our fresh water. 

Seeing as planetary distress in its many forms is the greatest threat to my generation, even a few months of consuming plant based is something positive I can do for the environment.


So those are my big reasons. Of course, there are far more little reasons. Clearer skin. Milder cramps (hallelujah!). More energy. Weight loss. The money I save by being forced to cook instead of eating out. The list goes on and on and grows every day. 

I can't say I'll stay vegan forever and it certainly hasn't been easy so far. But for right now, this feels like the exact right thing for me.

Litterbugs

There is something so incredibly infuriating about people who throw garbage on the ground. To have to gall- the arrogance- the complete disrespect for your community and community members to simply drop trash while you walk down the street... I'm already getting worked up.

I have confronted two strangers for doing this.

A few years ago, I was walking behind a couple and the man was unwrapping a cigarette pack and letting the plastic fall to the ground as he went. At first, I thought it was an accident and resolved to just pick up the pieces myself. When the few innocent scraps of plastic turned into a veritable bread crumb trail of miscreant behavior, I realized I was just cleaning up after some barbaric malefactor.

When I had gathered all of the dropped packaging, I caught up to this guy and his companion. My earlier naivety put me in a bitter mood but also provided the outline for my confrontation. I pasted a big, sweet, dumb smile on my face and said politely, "Excuse me sir, you seem to have accidentally dropped this trash" while holding up the garbage for him to take.

He look in surprise and eyed me carefully. I just kept smiling and holding the plastic up. He finally concluded that I was harassing him- which I was- and smugly replied "no thank you" to my offering. Undeterred, I assured him, ever so sweetly, that this was in fact his garbage and that I had picked it up for him.

He continued to smirk, refusing to take the trash. I continued to hold up the trash, refusing to look away from this cretin. After a few awkward moments, his girlfriend/partner/sister/whomever, apologized kindly, promised to throw it away, and took the trash from my hand. Situation diffused, I gave up and walked away.

Was my reaction passive-aggressive? Absolutely. Did this guy probably laugh me off as soon as I walked away? Most definitely. Regardless, I felt good about my confrontation skills. I was new to DC and it was an awful feeling seeing someone treat my new community with such flagrant disregard.

Which brings me to this past Sunday. The weather was warm and the red brick sidewalks of my neighborhood were bustling with strollers, dogs, and joggers. I was among them, listening to my March playlist, and marveling at the mercurial nature of DC weather (it was 70s that day and I am writing this during a snow storm*). I found myself once again behind a couple.

And once again, the guy just starts dropping his cigarette trash while he walks.

This time, I had no illusions that this was an accident. He had clearly ducked to the side, behind his companion's back, and littered. Shocked and outraged, I instantly dismissed the idea of ignoring his crime and set upon a course of action. I'm not the Katie of two years ago. I'm the jaded, cynical Katie that crawled her way out of 2017. I don't have the humor for passive-aggressive stand-offs that will make for a good anecdote later. I certainly don't have the patience to be anything but direct.

I caught up to him and his walking partner and said, "Excuse me. Please don't throw your trash on the ground. It's incredibly disrespectful to your community and to those of us who live in it." My tone conveyed the disappointment, annoyance, and exhaustion I felt at having to explain such a basic concept to a full-grown man- without laying it on too thick.

And once again, the automatic defensive maneuver of the weak-minded reared its ugly head. He smirked condescendingly and said "okay."

To my great displeasure, once again, the female companion apologized for him, took the trash out of my hand, and promised to throw it away. My only solace was that this time, the woman seemed surprised.

Ladies, please stop apologizing for your men. It is not you who chose to carelessly desecrate a beautiful sunny day (and subsequently my stroll) with ugly behavior. It is not you who reacted with sarcastic dismissal when being called out for your misdeeds. Thus, it is not your mess to clean up and certainly not your apology to give.

On a side note, you should also ditch those jerks, but I suppose that's your business.

I could go on and on about why littering is bad and rude but I would likely be preaching to the choir. Besides the fact that it's a widely-accepted, basic pillar of human decency drilled into our culture since birth, about 20% of my audience is my own mother, of whom I have distinct memories scolding random teenagers in a Six Flags parking lot for ditching their McDonald's trash on the ground.

Sometimes, you just have to make it your business to hold people accountable.







Post Script Note: Someone asked the question on /r/askreddit "What are some ethical life choices we should all be making?" and the top response was about all doing our parts to keep our forests and beaches clean. The top comment on this response was worth sharing here:

"Sebastian Junger (the guy who wrote A Perfect Storm) had a great bit on littering in his book Tribe. He says littering is the epitome of the idea that you aren't a part of your community because it's the distillation of your own idea that no one and nothing else matters more than the tiniest inconvenience you might have."



*It's been a couple weeks since I wrote this. You'll be happy to hear it is once again high 70s. 

Authentic

I hate the word authentic.

My disdain for the word is admittedly vague and I concede there is a time and a place for its usage. However, on its worst day, the word ‘authentic’ can be downright problematic.

The human obsession with finding the ‘real’ is understandable. We live short lives and that inevitably leads to a mad scramble for any sort of meaning. Some seek Gods, find legacy in procreation, or feel impact with service. Others except absurdity and console existential dread with fleeting pleasures and personally meaningful experiences. Many mix and match the above. Yet, somehow, it is universal that we all yearn for something “real.”

But what does that even mean?

I suppose my feelings are ambivalent from the beginning of this argument. How could I admit to the ubiquitous nature of this compulsion but then follow that with a condemnation?

First, the contradiction is glaring. We live in reality- so everything we encounter is inherently ‘real.’ To infer something is synthetic or less-than because it does not meet a certain criteria of soulfulness or depth is dismissive. Our life is filled with small, shallow aspects that are no less important.

For example, I am currently drinking coffee out of a large, misshapen mug with the word ‘wild’ etched into the side. The bumpy, imperfect nature of the mug might imply that it was made tenderly by hand by some pottery artisan- or even by me. However, by simply glancing at the bottom, there is evidence that it was mass produced in China by a global conglomerate. Additionally, you may think that I spent time browsing the glassware section, searching for the perfect word that connected to me. No. I thought the lettering looked trendy.

It’s the perfect symbol of how ‘authentic’ seems to crop up again and again. In our attempt to summon the ‘real,’ we end up with cheap fabrication. Which of course, we then bemoan and count as a mark against our genuine existence.

But I love this mug. It’s big, which I prefer. The ceramic material is thick enough that my drinks stay warm. I’ve gotten a number of compliments on it. Yes, this mug is a symbol of all things fake, mass-produced, and superficial. But it’s also MY mug. I put it to my lips everyday while I work, talk politics with coworkers, and live my mundane reality. Note that I do not use mundane derogatorily but rather with secure realism.

A more dangerous example of the quest for authenticity going awry is in experiencing other cultures. We want our culture served plain and uncut, no pesky modernity or messy actuality. I suppose this makes sense sometimes with food. Obviously, someone intimately familiar with Mexican food culture is going to create a far better eating experience than a minimum wage worker at a fast food chain serving pre-frozen food. No shade to those restaurants, though. Some believe Taco Bell was pivotal in popularizing Mexican food in America. And while not actually active in Mexican culture, my brother would probably argue that Del Taco plays a key role in Californian teenage culture.

Still, classic Mexican food is delicious. More than that, it feels good to participate in the appreciation of the original style, not just the imitation.

But what about someone who has Mexican and Japanese family and whose food reflects both heritages? Any culinary play between those two would be incredibly interesting but you’d be hard-pressed to call it authentic. That’s when we’re limited by the term. Fusion food is more than tasty, it’s an uplifting manifestation of modern cultural cross-fertilization.

Then, there are cities. I’ve been lucky enough to travel quite a bit and through those adventures, speak with a lot of other travelers. There is a practice among them of trying to find the ‘real insert-country/city-name.’ On the one hand, this is a positive attempt to move past the pre-packaged façade designed for tourists, in order to better experience the country as a local might. On the other hand, those dogged in the search for ‘authenticity’ risk blowing past realities in favor of a certain vision in their head. Is the small, picturesque town in rural Colombia authentic? Is urban Bogota authentic? Is the tourist-heavy seaside city of Cartagena authentic? Is Medellin, a place overcoming their infamous history of drug cartels and undergoing rapid modernization to the great benefit of its citizens, authentic?

My belief is that they are all equally authentic. To claim one is more ‘real Colombia’ is to discount the narratives of entire swaths of the population in service of a narrow picture. Furthermore, it seems arrogant of me to even deign to preside over a discussion remarking on the legitimacy of various aspects of a foreign country. How is that my place?

I will not go too deep into the ugliest side of this, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this thorny topic. Authentic can be code for unchanged, which has a darker side. Modernity may bring in fast-food and aesthetically displeasing commercialization but it also brings in schools, hospitals, grocery stores, and more. When we celebrate those who’ve not had access to the benefits of modernization (and re-frame it as ‘escaping’ modernization), we risk romanticizing hardship. It’s a tricky issue in which I'm not fully versed so I’ll leave those affected to tell their own narratives rather than speaking for them.

That brings me to the final example in my ever-growing post: my own backyard. Washington, DC is an interesting case study. We are, like other metropoles, obsessed with finding bite-sized authenticity to sprinkle onto our concrete, neoteric lives. DC is rapidly changing- eternal construction projects creep from one neighborhood to the next, sweeping away businesses, and tragically residents, that have been there for decades. We simultaneously decry the injustice of it all, while guiltily relishing the idea of a Whole Foods within walking distance. We love unique (even weird) outing experiences. The most recent trend I’ve seen is a bar where you also participate in ax-throwing. 

We cheer every new restaurant that opens and begrudgingly fill every post-modern, metallic eyesore that serve as new apartment complexes (my ‘authentic’ Capitol Hill rowhouse comes complete with real DC mice and historic faulty electrical wiring!). Yet, we deeply cherish a few local institutions. Any hole-in-the-wall that has survived the brutal, unrelenting march of urban redevelopment deserves our love and patronage.

This past Saturday, after my ASL class, a classmate and I went to one such place. It was a breakfast joint that was basically one tiny room. Much of the decorations had been left up since the 80s and the menu was incredibly basic- and subsequently the cheapest food I’ve seen in DC so far. The wait staff was funny and they knew many of the diners by name (who knew the staff’s names in turn). We drank coffee from mismatched mugs and talked politics over waffles that were made in a waffle maker you could buy at any target. And that’s when that troublesome word popped into my head: authentic.

This kind of out-of-the-80s, underground-feeling dining experience could be artificially created. You could hunt down some retro decorations, recreate outdated restaurant practices (cash only and no substitutions, for instance), and you could even demand that your wait staff take on a certain persona. That happens all the time. But this didn’t feel like that. It felt real. I was a part of something meaningful: a local resident visiting a local institution.

Which, of course, is where I bring my argument full circle, back to my ambivalence. I suppose I should include some closing thoughts before I think myself around the track again. 

Assigning labels of authenticity is fraught with pitfalls. We hazard mislabeling the basic content of our lives as trivial or fake- when those are the very things that build our reality. Additionally, in our attempts to escape 'synthetic' modernity, we can sometimes box people in with such terms. But perhaps despite all this, our quest for authenticity is ultimately a part of the human condition.

Maybe the dichotomy of real vs fake is inextricably interwoven into our perceptions of meaning and value. Maybe the conflation of real and meaninful isn’t an error, but a gut feeling that’s difficult to put into words. And maybe judging whether something feels ‘real,’ while a problematic exercise when done from the outside, has merit when contemplating your own life and community.

Or maybe authenticity is a nostalgic shadow on the wall, the concept an organic side-effect of the modern age, which we will never truly capture.

This headache is why I stand by my opening line: I hate the word authentic. 

A Walk Around the Neighborhood

I'm a walker. Sometimes I stroll, sometimes I agitatedly march. Sometimes I glance around and smile at strangers, sometimes I moodily cast my eyes down wishing I was the only person in the whole city. But whatever my mood, walking is the best way to sort through whatever madness is occupying my mind.

In addition to the physical and mental health benefits, an evening constitutional a few nights a week is the best way to get to know your neighborhood. Being a creature of habit, I walk the same path around my block every single time. Which means in every place I've lived, I've gotten to know my immediate area really well.

My love of walks began in California. I used to take the sidewalk all of the way around our small neighborhood multiple times. The weather was always the perfect amount of chilly so that I could wear a light sweatshirt with pockets to keep my iPod in. I especially loved night walks.

Sometimes, I'd even walk to the beach.

There's something so rejuvenating about being the only one with a thinking mind in a world of resting people.

In fact, the later I took my walks, the less likely I was to be bothered with paying attention to cars pulling out of driveways or friendly strangers breaking my concentration with unwelcome, albeit friendly, hellos. This led to my teenage self silently sneaking out at night for perfectly innocent moonlight strolls. However, after I came home one night to a furious mother, I always came back by 11:30pm.

I've never lived anywhere safe enough for late night walks since.

Columbus was different. So much of my travel was on foot, I walked for leisure much less often. When I did, though, the walks were of a completely different nature than those in California.

For one, there were people everywhere. Students spread out in the grass, studying. Frats playing drinking games on front lawns. People-watchers sitting and drinking on roofs. It was your stereotypical college neighborhood.

Beautiful midwestern foliage

After moving to Silver Spring, Maryland from college, I got back into my walking routine. I took a straight shot down a residential street and if it was a weekend, I'd venture into Rock Creek Park a bit. My company along this course was typically joggers in their 40s.

I was even inspired to try running, too. That didn't last long.

Rock Creek National Park

That brings me to today. My route around Capitol Hill certainly rivals my beautiful California path, aesthetically. Pastel row-houses. Meticulously maintained front gardens. Big trees that change colors with the seasons. Plus, the city aspect offers certain elements along the way such as three schools, a community center, and two bodegas.

My walks also feature things that are just so fundamentally DC. I pass FOUR little birdhouse libraries which I stop to browse through every single time. Many houses feature political signs that say things like "We love our neighbors no matter their nationality, gender, race, or sexuality" or "Black Lives Matter" or any number of MLK quotes. Of course candidates are also featured prominently during any election cycle- be it local or national. And most DC of all, this is the time of year when the cherry blossoms start to bloom.

My block. Deceptively upscale-looking, no?

Signs. Signs everywhere. 

I'm maintaining a list of "only in DC" moments I see. One entry:

"Just saw an old man in a 'RESIST' t-shirt, with a martini in one hand and throwing a ball with his granddaughter using the other, in their tiny 16 sq ft front yard."

Classic.

I guess you could see this anywhere but it feels so here.

The final aspect that characterizes the Capitol Hill neighborhood is the demographic. My immediate area is pretty much all young families. I joke that they are the young parents who are stubbornly putting off their inevitable move to the suburbs. But the houses around here have a lot of stairs, no real yards, and the streets are too busy to let kids play unattended. That's my theory why my street has far more strollers than kids running around.

Overall, I've formed an intimate bond with a variety of microcosms.

It makes me wonder what my walks will look like the future. Will I live somewhere rainy and have to invest in some good wellies? Will I live somewhere ungodly hot and be forced to lather on 80spf sunscreen before I leave the house? Will I live somewhere dangerous and be limited to walking around a government compound?

If my life pans out the way I hope it does, I'll get the chance to experience all of the above and more. There's one thing I'm certain about: where ever I end up, I'll always know the few blocks around my house like the back of my hand.

45 Minutes as a Cyberbully

Today I'm going to tell you the story about the 45 minutes I accidentally lived as a cyberbully. I'm honestly still shook. 

The end of the month at work can get pretty stressful, so in order to stay out of my head when I'm off the clock, I usually consume far more media. It's probably an unhealthy coping mechanism but I don't think my free Blogger account comes with the bytes it would take to cover that discussion. 

On Thursday, I was walking home and decided to stop at the grocery store for a few things. While walking, I watched this entertaining Youtube channel that I only discovered last week. A woman in Canada plays Sims and gives them wild personalities and hilarious life stories. You can check her out here, but fair warning, the content is definitely for mature audiences. 

This week, she started a new story line with new characters, including machinima introductions to her gameplay. Machinima is machine cinema or basically videography using computerized characters. It's quite the creative medium. Anyway, in this storyline, one of the characters is very mean. I think the creator was inspired by reality show characters that have no filter and rage issues. 

I'm not a fan of reality shows. They give me legitimate anxiety watching because I'm so worried what they are going to say next. Even if I know it's fake. You know that feeling you get during a scary movie when you just know something is about to jump out at you? That same set of instinctual chemicals your body pumps into your veins during those scenes get inflicted upon me when I see a staged fight about to break out. You don't have to understand it- I sure don't.

However, I enjoyed the video as it was just as entertaining as usual. I decided to write a comment on the video poking fun at myself for stressing about the mean character.

I was in and out of the grocery store quickly and then went back to watching the video on my walk home. As I watched, I went back down the comments section to read other comments. I passed my own and realized, with a shock, that I had replaced the name of the character with the name of the creator!

I basically called the creator a big mean bully that made me feel stressed. With the animated character's name, it was a self-deprecating joke about a made-up person. With the creator's name, it was a passive-aggressive indictment that came out of left-field on a light hearted humor video. Alarmed, I quickly deleted my comment. The time stamp said 6 minutes had passed since I posted it. So likely, no one even saw it, least of all the creator herself. Just in case, I left another comment explaining briefly that if she saw the comment, I switched her name for the character's name by honest mistake (they both are two syllable names that start with a hard "C"!) and I think she's a nice person and hilarious Youtuber. 

At home, I settled in with my shiny new computer and went to quickly check twitter before playing some games myself. 

There, at the top of my timeline, was a tweet from the creator (who I follow) with a screengrab of my comment and the caption "guys, I just don't know..."

Panic. Anxiety. Guilt. This was my worst nightmare.

That may sound dramatic, but it literally is. I have two biggest fears. One, is fairly common and irrelevant to this tale. The other, is that I will become the butt of the joke in a viral meme. That strangers all over the internet will hate me for doing something dumb or someone will make up some awful story and pair it with my picture. That crap happens on the internet. 

Even worse, my first and last name were included. In an attempt to avoid the shelter of anonymity on the internet, all of my accounts are my first and last name. It's too easy to be critical or harsher on the internet when you aren't held accountable for your words. To force myself to combat this, everything I say on the internet can be directly linked back to me. 

It's even more extreme because someday I will (hopefully) undergo the most scrutinous federal background check there is! If that's not enough to hold my tongue when I think of a snarky comment, I don't know what is.

More than the horror that my full name was out there associated with an act of cyberbullying- because that's what it was- I felt really guilty about making her feel bad. 

The screengrab of the comment had the time stamp of four minutes. Those two minutes between her seeing it and my deleting it cost a lot. I made the mistake of reading the replies below. The consensus seems to be that I'm a weirdo, jerk, and jealous of her success. Two of those three might be true, but I take issue with the middle claim.

Now I was in "dear God I have to do something" mode. Obviously, this had to be cleared up somehow. But this woman is quasi-internet famous. There's no guarantee she would see anything I sent her. I would have prefered to do it privately but as of right now, there's no easy way to subtly pull aside a famous Youtuber from Toronto and apologize for accidentally cyberbullying her. 

I decided to go with the most likely way to catch her eye. Own up to it by directly commenting on her tweet. Yes, I could risk the wrath of her followers. And yes, this would also mean that my own followers, who could have stayed oblivious, would get drawn to the screenshot of nastiness. Embarrassing. But, since my first and last name is my twitter handle, I could honestly out myself as the commenter and apologize as face to face as it gets on the internet. 

The minutes ticked by and there was no sign that she saw my response. I decided to hedge my bets. I wrote another comment on the youtube video- which had over 200 comments by then so that was a shout into the void. I sent her a direct message on instagram which was likely filtered to the folder of people she doesn't follow back. Finally, in a desperate act I'm really not proud of, I sent a note to her business email. That's among the internet's biggest protocol no-nos. Those emails are for advertisers and promo requests, not for fans. She may not even be the one who checks it, it could go straight to her representation. But I had to try. 

The anxiety I felt desperately trying to a) undo any hurt feelings caused by my inadvertent cyberbullying and b) clear my name was overwhelming. 

After 45 minutes that felt like an eternity, the creator tweeted back: 

"OH SHIT *4 crying laughing emoticons* that's funny af then my bad *heart emoticon*" and deleted the screengrab of my comment. 

No hard feelings. I replied on another of her tweets expressing my relief that she knows it was an honest mistake, that I enjoy her content, and apologizing for spamming her other social media. 

Ultimately, this harrowing tale comes to nothing. I felt shaky for the rest of the night and most of the next day, to be honest. I'm not sure why it hit me so hard. But I can't help but imagine- what if this had happened to be a famous person with millions of twitter followers rather than thousands? What if they had so much incoming fan attention, they never saw my explanation? Or didn't care to hear it? What if angry fans spammed my twitter, facebook, instagram, etc. with death threats and hateful personal attacks? 

That happens all of the time. 

It's why I have an emergency plan in place. If it ever happens for real, I will immediately deactivate all of my social media accounts and go dark for one year. Without the internet, maybe I'll learn to appreciate the sounds of birds chirping or take the opportunity to enjoy print media's slow march towards death while I still have a chance. 

But I guess for now, thankfully, I'm still on the grid. 

Latching Onto a Whim

This past summer, I made a rather life-changing discovery- there are hundreds of blogs out there written by foreign service officers. They recount the fairytale and not-so-fairytale adventures of what I believe to be the most interesting and enviable career out there. I poured through these blogs for months, consuming every detail with a manic fervor. I'd walk away from binge-reading with a slightly numb, floating feeling. I craved them all of the time. Eventually, I had to face the rather alarming similarities to an opioid addiction (not to make light of a very serious epidemic) and kick the habit.

While I've returned to keeping up with some FS blogs (responsibly, I swear!), the truly long term effect was a nagging wish to have my own blog one day. Oh, what captivating tales I'd tell that will no doubt feed some future poor soul's FS blog addiction! However, in true Katie fashion, I've decided to spurn the merits of delayed gratification in favor of immediate whim. I want to blog now.

There are a number of reasons that support starting now. For one, while my life isn't filled with malaria pills and human trafficking luncheons quite yet, I have some quasi-interesting things going on in my life. Things that I know I'll appreciate having some record of.

Second, I don't do a lot of writing anymore and I fear what was once one of my greatest strengths is now languishing in disuse. I contemplated (and even started) writing a book for fun but that idea died when my computer did. Three short months later, in with a new computer, in with a new form of expression!

Third, journaling is universally recognized as good for your health*. I journal fairly regularly anyway, so naturally, the next step is to put all of my personal information and thoughts out into a format that cannot be erased and always has the potential to come back and haunt you. So, journaling without the sense of safety and through the filter of knowing there's an audience.

Which brings me to my final thoughts. Some may believe it preposterously arrogant of me to think my rather mundane life is worthy of a spotlight. And to deem this project a valid idea is to show such a level of delusion, of caricatured self-image, that I should put down my computer and seek help immediately. To those I say, "you might be right."

But alas, see the above reasons for why I'm going to trudge forward anyway. Namely, the self-control problem. I don't know what exactly I'll write about yet, or when I'll post, but those are logistics for those who've exercised a modicum of forethought, not me.

*No actual research was done before citing this possibly made-up fact.