I Think Social Media Won

I think social media won.

Not in the triumphant, utopian “bringing the world together” sort of way. More in the “slowly convincing billions of people that spectatorship is a substitute for living” kind of way.

Somewhere along the line, we traded neighborhoods for audiences, conversations for content, and friendships for engagement metrics. We became simultaneously more connected and more isolated. That’s an impressive feat of engineering, if nothing else.

Not because people are inherently bad. Quite the opposite. I think we’ve built systems that monetize attention by replacing genuine relationships with metrics, outrage, performance, and endless scrolling. We mistake being connected for actually knowing each other. We consume people’s lives rather than live our own.

I don’t want to be part of that anymore.

So this is probably my last post here.

If you’d like to know what I’m actually up to, you’ll find me at thelostchavez.com.

No algorithms. No dopamine slot machine. No pretending that a vacation was relaxing because I managed to photograph it before having a panic attack or getting into another fight.

Just writing.

The timing isn’t exactly ideal. My wife and I are separating. I’m selling or storing most of what I own, packing up my life, moving into the back of a Tacoma, and setting off to wander the world because, at the moment, every carefully constructed five-year plan feels like fiction anyway. I’ll be working remotely, wandering more or less aimlessly for lack of anything better to do, looking for beautiful places, good conversations, and hopefully becoming a slightly better human somewhere along the way.

It sounds romantic until you remember I’ll occasionally be sleeping in a truck in a Walmart parking lot, wondering why I spent eighteen years in a broken relationship, and the better part of a decade building a successful company just to voluntarily become vaguely homeless.

Life has a strange sense of humor.

I’ll keep working remotely while I travel. I’ll write about what I learn, where I screw up, what breaks, what heals, and whether there is actually such a thing as finding yourself, or whether that’s just something people say because “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing” doesn’t sell as many books. There will be stories of my many failures, questionable decisions, philosophy, software, fly fishing, aviation, and whatever strange corner of the world I happen to wake up in. Maybe I’ll figure a few things out. Maybe I won’t. Either outcome seems equally plausible.

The blog won’t be about having answers.

It’ll be about paying attention.

If there is any philosophy behind this, it’s simply that I’d rather collect experiences than followers or likes. I’d rather know a handful of people deeply than be vaguely familiar with ten thousand strangers, or the regular barflies at the local pub. I’d rather miss the algorithm and happy hour than miss my own life.

If you’d like to follow along, I’ll be writing at thelostchavez.com.

And here’s my standing invitation:

• If you know a river, lake, beach, or flat where I should throw a fly, I want to hear about it.
• If you’re somewhere in the world and want to spend a day fishing, let’s do it.
• And if you’re a pilot, a flight school, or a flying club, or know of opportunities where I can keep building time while I finish my IFR rating and commercial certificate, I’d love to connect.

Maybe the point isn’t to find myself.

Maybe it’s just to stop looking at a glowing rectangle long enough to notice where I already am.

See you out there.

Or don’t.

Statistically speaking, you’ll probably be scrolling.