I like it here.  I like that no one's trying to make 
money off of me and that there are no advertisements.
It feels simple and uncluttered.  I've been moving
my life in that direction.  My husband and I haven't
watched TV in months.  We're reading books now.  I've
left Facebook.  Somehow it's been harder to leave
Instagram, but I'm leaving there, too.  It's been a 
quiet detox. 

When our baby was born, I started reading books I'd
already read to keep myself awake-ish.  Then as I got
a little bit more sleep - after the first month - I 
moved on to Stephen King books, which were new but simple.
Finally, I'm on to non-fiction.  Yes, I'm reading Permanent
Record.  Before that I read We Are the Weather, a book 
about climate change.  Both of these are extremely 
disheartening, but it's very difficult to share my 
anxieties about lack of privacy and planetary destruction 
with anyone. For the most part, they know what's wrong with
the world and just don't want to hear it.  I sense that 
people know these are issues but don't want to change.
Change is hard.

In my day job, I'm an accessibility specialist.  It's part
of my job to convince developers and designers that 
accessibility is important.  For the most part, they agree,
or at least they nod in agreement, but the second the work
gets hard or leaves the realm of what they'd rather be 
doing, it's not so important anymore.  It becomes
secondary, a nice-to-have.  I've developed a strong case
of care fatigue.  I go on and on about the importance of 
access at work and then try to get anyone to care about
anything else the rest of the time.  Luckily, my husband
and I are mostly on the same page.  The baby smiles along.

Lately I have been thinking about "The Ones Who Walk Away
From Omelas," a story by Ursela K. LeGuin.  I won't ruin 
it for you if you haven't read it, but I recommend it.  
Before I started working in tech, I worked at an emergency
shelter for homeless families.  During my interview, they
asked me why I wanted to work with the homeless.  Part 
of my answer was that homelessness didn't have to last
forever.  It seemed that it was possible for all homeless
people to be housed, and that was good, hopeful work.  I 
was wrong.  Yes, many families found homes.  But I remember
working with some families, a single parent who worked at 
a fast food restaurant and had five kids maybe, and working
through every possible manipulation of their finances, and 
realizing, no.  The system has failed you.  You will never
make enough money to support yourself and your family.
For these families, maybe they would find housing but 
probably only after chronic homelessness (potentially years
on the street) when the state could potentially step in. 
Even the families who had Section 8 vouchers could not find
landlords who would take them in.

Anyway, all this to say - care fatigue.  I'm hoping to find
things that are better, that are not about making money or
mining data.  I want to walk away from that as much as 
possible.  And this seems like a good place to start.

I'll try to be less depressing.  At least eventually.