If You Can’t Find the Light, Be the Light…
The other week I joined a new (to me) social network just to see what it was about. I heard about it on a podcast and figured I’d poke around for a bit.
The network is called the Fediverse. If you’ve never heard of it, the easiest way to think about it is this: instead of one big company running a social media site (like Facebook, Instagram, or X), the Fediverse is made up of thousands of independently run servers that all talk to each other. Each server has its own community, rules, and vibe, but users can still interact across servers. It’s decentralized social media. Think email, but for social networks.
In theory, it sounds great. No single company controlling everything. Communities are built around interests. A chance to escape the worst parts of the big platforms.
So I joined a server hosted by the podcast hosts.
I’ll admit, at first I didn’t really know how to use it. The interface felt a little like Twitter from ten years ago, and the culture seemed… intense.
What I found in the beginning was more of the same thing you find almost everywhere online: endless political rants and hot takes. Usually from one side of the aisle. And it ranged from far that side to farther that side to farthest that side.
That was disappointing.
But I kept experimenting and eventually learned how to mute hashtags and follow only the things I wanted. Once I did that, my feed improved dramatically. Suddenly, it was posts about hobbies, music, random observations, and people sharing things they enjoyed.
In other words, the internet I actually want.
Ironically, though, it wasn’t something on the Fediverse that made me rethink it. It was an Instagram post.
I wish I had saved it because I can’t find it now, but the basic message stuck with me. The post talked about how easy it is to look around and see all the darkness in the world. The bad news. The anger. The constant outrage.
And let’s be honest, that’s what a lot of social media has become. A place to wallow in whatever the worst thing happening today might be.
But the post ended with something simple:
Look for the light. Look for the good things.
And then the line that stuck with me:
If you can’t find the light, be the light.
Yes, I realize there are some pretty strong religious undertones there, and I’m 100% fine with that.
That quote actually prompted me to clean up my Fediverse feed. I muted political hashtags and followed good-news type tags. Travel. Music. Hobby stuff. People posting interesting or funny things.
But when I mentioned I wanted to keep my feed mostly non-political, the responses rolled in.
Apparently, I was “living in a bubble.”
Apparently, I needed to be political everywhere because of tyranny.
Apparently, choosing not to engage in constant online political debate was some kind of civic failure.
I get my news from plenty of places. I read across the spectrum. I stay informed.
What I don’t need is political commentary on every single website I visit.
Eventually,I just decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. I deleted the account. To be fair, I probably could have stayed and curated it better. But the moment had already done its work on me.
Because I realized something.
I already have a place on the internet that I control.
This blog.
The other nice thing about a personal blog is that there’s no algorithm. No company is trying to feed me outrage because outrage keeps people scrolling. No system boosts the most extreme voices because they generate engagement. What you see here is simply what I choose to write and what you choose to read.
No trending topics.
No rage bait.
No “you might also like this argument.”
Just a quiet corner of the internet.
Now, I know I complain here sometimes. I whine about getting older. I write pity-party posts. I talk about injuries, triathlon training mistakes, random annoyances, and occasionally yell at clouds.
That’s not going to completely disappear.
But I’d like this space to lean toward something else.
I’d like it to be a small corner of the internet that’s a little lighter.
Not fake positivity. Not pretending the world is perfect.
Just a place that occasionally highlights the good stuff. Music. Funny complaints. Triathlon adventures. Random observations about life. Maybe the occasional success story.
In other words, my attempt to be the light, even if it’s just a small flashlight in a very large internet.
And if nothing else, at least it will be a place where the comment section doesn’t turn into a debate about the fall of civilization every time someone mentions a bicycle ride.
Which already makes it better than most of the internet.