2025.01.DisappearingMoment
Beth was a committed vegetarian when we started dating, had been for years. I was several years in, too. And I had cut out dairy and eggs a couple of years earlier.
Vegans were less common then. People asked me about it. I worried that my choice made them feel inconvenienced or judged. I looked for inoffensive explanations.
I liked that being vegan required discipline. I needed more discipline in my life. Being vegan helped. This was true. It was also incomplete.
Several years into our marriage, Beth spent a month at the Omega Institute learning to teach Jivamukti yoga. Her instructors were strict vegans. They considered it integral to their understanding of yoga. They expected Jivamukti instructors to be vegan. Teaching yoga was as much about philosophy, ethics, and liberation as it was about breath, postures, or movement.
Beth was eager to share with me what she had learned. Being vegan was about more than discipline. It was about avoiding cruelty to animals and agricultural workers. It was environmental sustainability and justice. Feeling healthier and living longer.
When I told her that I had studied and believed these things, it hurt her. I hurt her. Why hadn’t I said anything? She had caused suffering. She had harmed the Earth. She hadn’t felt as good as she could feel.
I said it was because I loved her. I didn’t want to inconvenience her. I didn’t want her to feel judged. I didn’t want her to think I would make her feel those things. I didn’t want to influence her choices. I wanted her life to be easy. I didn’t want her to resent me.
You see what I did there.
I should have loved her enough to tell her how I felt. I should have accepted that people who love each other don’t always agree.
Loving someone means wanting them to make informed choices. Love them enough to tell them what you think and why you feel what you feel. Love them enough to accept their decisions. To compromise or experiment. Commit to the relationship, not the behavior.
I inconvenienced Beth and a lot of people that I love a couple of weeks ago. In my personal email account, I stopped accepting messages sent from Gmail. That includes Beth, who uses Gmail for personal email.
I fucked up by not discussing it with her first. I saw it as a technical problem, surprised it was possible. I wasn’t sure I could make it work and felt proud when I figured out how to do it.
I published a post about leaving Gmail on my website. I updated my About page. I included an explanation in the note that people get when they send me a message. I thought I’d handled it well.
Beth is a better person than I am. When I hurt her, she let me know. She asked why I’d done what I did. Not what I thought. Not why I disliked Google. What was I feeling? Why now?
This is the part that I didn’t post anywhere else. This is the part I wish I didn’t have to write. This is me demonstrating my love for you.
Part of it is control. It feels like everything is precarious. Like I can’t help the people I love. Like I am complicit in atrocity. Rejecting Gmail messages feels like something I can control.
Part of it is epigenetic. I learned about the Holocaust before I stopped sucking my thumb. Israeli propaganda. Soviet spying and antisemitism. Good ol’ boys and Southern-style racism. Keep your head down. Don’t get comfortable. The ones who left were the ones who survived. Never again.
Sometimes people make choices that no longer feel like choices. The pain of doing nothing is insignificant compared to the torture of the status quo. It’s almost unbearable to inconvenience you or make you feel judged. It’s no longer bearable to go on doing nothing.
Google is a horror. It has ruined things that I love, harmed things that matter to me. It is a battle-tested weapon, standing by for catastrophic deployment.
I hate that people are using it against you. I don’t want it to do you further, irreparable harm. What are you willing to do to keep that from happening?
Welcome to January 2025’s Disappearing Moment, an inventory of my experiences. I hope you enjoy it.
Podcasts
- Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD) (I Liked It): Chenjerai Kumanyika is one of my favorite broadcaters. He asks compelling, necessary questions. In Empire City, there are no answers. Which may be the problem.
- “Humans vs. Machines” (The World As You’ll Know It, Season 4) (I Liked It): Here is my test for AI. Can it discuss AI in a way that isn't so boring that it impugns the value of organic intelligence?
Nerdy Software
Get the slop out of your search results with Bad Website Blocklist. It works with real browsers and search engines, and also Google’s abominations.
Free Font
Geist Sans is pretty. I want to spend a month with pretty.
Bougie Products
I enjoy shopping at Costco.
Personal Finance and Investing
Total Portfolio Allocation and Withdrawal (TPAW) Planner is a free web app or spreadsheet. Create models about how much you can spend in retirement.
Reading
- Mandy Brown reads books and shares what she learns. She lives in Philadelphia.
- Erin Kissane writes about online communities. Which is to say, us.
- Rohan Kumar feels like a spiritual successor to Aaron Swartz.
- You might know Mike Monteiro from “Fuck You, Pay Me”. He’s a Philly kid, living in SF.
- I had an email exchange with Adam Newbold 20 years ago. He was kind then, and still is.
- Laura Olin is the reason I started writing a newsletter. She’s the best.
- Leon Paternoster is a Fall fan who worked in libraries and understands technology.
- Jenn Schiffer is a comedian and artist who is good at coding and creating communities.
- Janet Vertesi is a Princeton professor. Her Opt Out Project is clear, inviting, and fun.
Where I Get My News
- Insider NJ Morning Intelligence Briefing: I must really, really like my job to subject myself to this one.
- The Logoff: Patrick Reis, writing for Vox.
- New Jersey Globe: Claiming to “really, really like” my job understates my willingness to suffer for it.
- News Minimalist = Max Headroom x (Ayahuasca + Paul Harvey)
- NJ News Commons Daily News Roundup: Presented by the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. If I had to pick one daily news summary, this is it.
- NJ Spotlight News: Nonprofit and well written. If I could pick one publication, this would be the one.
- Politico New Jersey Playbook: Matt Friedman has the scruples to admit when he’s wrong.
I follow The News because it’s part of my job. If I weren’t paid to follow The News, I wouldn’t. If no one is paying you to do it, consider avoiding it. Use the time to volunteer and help people and take care of yourself.
“News” doesn’t foster empathetic, practical choices — it assaults them. If, like me, you feel compelled to be “informed,” I encourage you to:
- Avoid all video-based news
- Don’t listen to podcasts or other audio that’s released more often than weekly
- Read as little text-based news as possible
- Favor authors over publications, stations, or websites
- If you’re using social media, you’re doing it ass backwards
Thank you for spending a few moments with me. I appreciate you and look forward to corresponding again next month.
Brett
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No large language models were used in the production of the Disappearing Moment newsletter or website (inspired by RFC 9518 Appendix A ¶ 4 and Tantek Çelik).