Ode to Dirt or How Do You Vacuum a Vacuum?

O Dirt! Where do I find thee? Let me count the places.
Under my children's fingernails and in the folds and grooves of their ears,
In the washing machine where the water doesn't reach and the lint collector where the crevice tool won't reach either,
On the window blinds (of course) and the tops of the baseboards,
In the bathtub after draining the water to find each rubber duck traced in dirt on the porcelain,
Ground into my carpet and tracked across my kitchen and (after a rousing wrestling match) sprinkled like salt on my sheets,
In all the places I clean daily and weekly and monthly and never, and even in places I thought were perfectly sealed.
You sly exfoliant, you!
I lay awake at night, conjuring schemes for your eradication, my critical thinking skills taxed to the utmost at the contemplation of your demise.
And yet, without you, where would I be?
What would I do with myself, had I no dirt to clean?
How would I sleep at night, not knowing how to fill the endless hours of the next morning, frozen in the suspense of a spotless day?
And so, I salute you, devil though you may be, in your red and dusty glory, for because of you, I have learned.
Because of you, I am strong.
And also, you can vacuum a vacuum with another vacuum or with a husband willing to give you a hand.

For Posterity

Seven years of facebook from ShaunnaSanders

Living Deliberately

I've been thinking about how to live more deliberately—about how to get as much as I can out of life while I still have time.

There are a lot of options. I could abandon my family and live in a cabin in the woods that I built with my own two hands. But I love my husband and children and hot showers and indoor plumbing.

I could build a well, install solar panels, disconnect the internet, and go off the grid. But I'm not Amish, and I don't know how our landlord would feel about that.

I could sell or give away everything I own and join a minimalist commune. But my family members must reach their own conclusions about the value of material goods; I can't do it for them.

I've decided that, rather than follow some extreme, transcendentalist measure, I can simply make more conscious deliberate choices about what I consume, especially what I consume online.

This leads to my decision to abstain from participating in two of the largest social media outlets: Facebook and Instagram. Of course, since Facebook bought Instagram, it's just THE largest social media outlet.

I haven't really been active on Facebook for several years. I deleted the app from my phone two years ago and only logged in to post something really significant—such as notice of my acceptance to law school and the fact that we were moving.

When Facebook bought Instagram, however, and started using the FB algorithm to order my Instagram feed, that was the last straw for me.

You see, I like having choices. I don't believe the companies who run these social media outlets should decide which of my friends' posts will interest me the most, which ads will be most likely to make me pause in my scrolling, etc.

When a computer algorithm chooses what to display, and when a company accepts marketing dollars in return for filling my newsfeed with ads, I no longer have a real choice in what I consume. If I open my account and look through my Newsfeed, I've already consumed all those ads and all those "relevant" posts, even if I didn't want to.

I know that opting out of social media is not a realistic solution for everyone. For me, however, it feels like the right thing to do. I'd like to take more care of how I spend my time and attention. I want to live deliberately and consume modern culture deliberately.

What about you? Any ideas on how you can better "suck all the marrow out of life so that, when you die, you do not come to find that you had not lived?"