And you know what? I didn't feel bad. The feeling that I was missing out on something was still there, believe me. But that subsided since I started my self-ban. Moreover, I was able to concentrate more on watching TV. I have complained about missing key plays (such as Goals in soccer) because I would always take even a short lull in play to pick up my phone and start looking. Yesterday/Sunday, knowing I wanted to say away from all things Jynx, I just curled up in my bed and watched the NFL ... well, when I wasn't passed out and taking naps. Those are good ways to note doomscroll, too. But all day I went without checking social media, and I felt alright.
Alas, since I do The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey, at some point I had to learn about what happened. I was going to wait till today/Monday to hear any montage from The Common Man Progrum to tell me. When I reached for my phone to see how charged it was, a notification from The Athletic app told me what I had feared, indeed the worst-case scenario: Minnesota indeed lost Games 3 and 4 and were summarily eliminated from the WNBA Playoffs. My full autopsy on this abortion of a season will go up on Tuesday, but suffice it to say, this is one of the all-time chokejobs in Minnesota sports history.
With that seal broken, I declared the self-ban broken, and I went back on Twitter and Bluesky again. This time I knew full well that not only did I want to see a reason as to how the Jynx fucked up this championship run, I wanted to see tweets and skeets reflecting my hate of this failure of a team -- "Yeah, anonymous person whom I don't even know could be a Russian bot -- insult all of those worthless players! You dumb motherfuckers fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!" And then I saw the litany of tweets and skeets about what Trump did and said, and all the ICE raids happening in the country, and all the rude and mean things Republicans said and did over the weekend ... and then I remember that whenever I go on social media, I get very upset and angry. In fact, social media is engineered to get you upset and angry. And then I remembered how I felt since Tuesday, when I just didn't go on social media. Sure, the urge to see what I was missing out was there. But I was a hell of a lot less upset and angry. And now, come to think of it, being clued into what I'm missing out on isn't worth the rage that boils inside me whenever I scroll.
I liked how I felt when I wasn't constantly going through social media. And maybe this will cost me being a more attuned sports fan and American citizen, but I don't know if I want to do it anymore. Maybe these past few days of being clueless is actually beneficial to my soul ... and maybe I should stay off of it, permanently, for my health and mental well-being.
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