Aldon Hynes's Blog

As I jumped into Mastodon and thought of ways describe the difference between Mastodon and Twitter, a phrase came to my mind, “Connection, not Commodity.” For me, it feels like Mastodon, and the Fediverse as a whole, is about re-establishing connection between people as opposed to the marketing platform that Twitter seems to have become.

I talked about this the other day, and recently, I came across a post by @atomicpoet@mastodon.social in response to @jon@social.lot23.com about algorithms and monetization goals. I reiterated the same idea I presented previously, with additional nuances. “While I recognize the need for financially sustainable models, it seems like the goals that really need to be discussed are different, such as improving accuracy in reporting, improving mental health of participants, and supporting a stronger, more stable democracy.”
All of this reminds me of Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson's EPIC 2014 from years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUHBPuHS-7s

“At its best, EPIC is a summary of the world—deeper, broader and more nuanced than anything ever available before. But at its worst, and for too many, EPIC is merely a collection of trivia, much of it untrue. All of it narrow, shallow and sensational. But EPIC is what we wanted. It is what we chose. And its commercial success preempted any discussions of media and democracy or journalistic ethics.”

Meanwhile, there are some interesting and exciting developments around connection. I’m already using tools to connect WordPress to ActivityPub. Simple Mastodon Verification has been upgraded to include verification for specific authors on a WordPress site. I’m testing that out.

Tumblr has announced plans to add ActivityPub and Flickr is considering it. The latest version of Mastodon now supports RSS feeds so you can subscribe to streams on Mastodon from your favorite RSS reader, including Microsoft Outlook.

Yet as we connect more, we are confronted with how we connect. This, I believe, is where some of the real hard work around Mastodon is being done. We saw some of this in the discussions around @parkermolloy@masto.ai and journa.host. We are now seeing this in discussions around whether episcodon.net should allow partisan politics and how specific it should be about not allowing hate speech.
I posted various comments, including:

I am wondering if the toxicity is part of the human condition and if Anglicanism has anything to say about it, especially in terms of the Via Media and the Elizabethan Settlement, especially when it comes to issues around moderation, banning, public discourse, and politics.

I am wondering if there are other ways of thinking about this, perhaps along the lines of our #Anglican Via Media.
For example, can we think about #AntiLGBTQ and #ProGun policies in a nonpartisan way? It seems as if we should oppose such policies no matter what our political affiliations.

In fact, I wonder if we might be more effective in combating such policies by moving away from demonizing people from a specific parties because many in the party support abhorrent policies.

I also wonder if we need to be thinking about how we can not only be a safe space, but also a brave space where we confront our own internal and structural biases.

I wonder if instead of dismissing the instance as not a safe and pleasant community, it would be possible to work together to address some of these issues.

For example, I believe that "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You" means "No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, or casteism" and this should be part of the server rules.

I also wonder if we need to be thinking about how we can not only be a safe space, but also a brave space where we confront our own internal and structural biases.

@perigee@toot.party responded, “yes. But with my years of work in social justice and civil rights activism, advocacy, and teaching, I must warn you that many people start this work but few stick with it. It's very difficult to confront and deconstruct internalized, colonized bias, and lots of folks figure they can handle it but ultimately find excuses not to stick with it. Let alone bear that torch and constantly bring it to others' attention.”

I think that is the challenge we face as we explore connections and community in Mastodon and the Fediverse.

In 2004, I set up my blog, Orient Lodge, as a place to gather material I was post various blogs and social media platforms around the internet.

In 2006, I set up my account on Twitter and have been activity there, to various levels, ever since.

In 2008 and 2009, I was doing a bit of experimenting with open source microblogging sites and pubsub protocols. I had set up Laconica servers and Google Wave.

I started a new job in 2010, and had less time for this.

In 2017, I found a bunch of traffic coming to my blog which seemed to be related to Laconica and Mastodon, so I set up a Mastodon account on one of the main servers. Then next year, I set up another Mastodon account on a different server.

With the latest migration of users from Twitter to Mastodon has led me to go back and explore some of my earlier writing, reactivate my old Mastondon account, keep the other one idle, add a new one that I am contemplating how to use, set up a Friendica account, set up a BookWyrm account, set up ActivityPub on a church WordPress server, ponder other fediverse sites, and how to time them all together.
With that, here are some of the place I can be found on the Fediverse

@ahynes1@mastodon.cloud This is where I’m most active. I set this up back in 2017. Most of my activity will be here.@ahynes1@mastodon.social This was the second account I set up, back in 2018. I’m keeping this account for the time being, but doing very little there.@ahynes1@episcodon.net An Episcopal Mastodon server. Currently, my use there will be limited to Episcopal discussions, mostly on the local server@ahynes1@books.theunseen.city This is my BookWyrm account, sort of like GoodReads. I’ve ported over much of my GoodReads reviews and have been posting a little there, mostly together with my Mastodon.cloud account to test and illustrate how they interact. I haven’t really hit critical mass there yet, but I hope to.@ahynes1@friendica.me This is my Friendica account. I’m using this for posting some of my longer form posts, in addition to posting them on my blog.@aldon@gracehartford.org This is my WordPress account on the Grace Church website. I’ve installed ActivityPub on the website and have been testing how WordPress behaves on the Fediverse.

Going forward, I hope to updated or migrate my blog to a platform with Fediverse integration, explore XMPP pubsub to ActivityPub integration, and explore other sites native to the Fediverse. Stay tuned.

I just boosted a post on Mastodon by @jon@social.lot23.com describing his experiences as a former designer for Twitter. The discussion about algorithms and reverse chronological posts is fascinating and is worthy of much discussion. There has also been a recent discussion about moderation and the experiences of @parkermolloy@masto.ai. These are the discussions to be had around negotiating a new distributed digital social contract.

One thing that particularly jumped out as me from Jon's thread was, "The data told us we were making a better product." I wondered, what data and how do we define 'better'? I'm guessing better is being measured in terms of number of tweetviews or number of interactions, or something like that. This probably makes sense if the focus is monetizing the platform.

But, what if we went for other metrics? More accurate reporting? Improved mental health? A stronger, more stable democracy? What do you think makes for a better microblogging platform?

It has been a long time since I've blogged here. Between seminary, work, family, and everything else, I've had limited time. However, the recent interest in Mastodon has caught my attention and I've reactivated my blog. I've gone out and looked at my earlier work in Laconica, set up ActivityPub on a Wordpress site I support, and am thinking of redoing this site.

I've been meaning to share some thoughts about Mastodon and the Fediverse, and I find each day slips away without me having time to write in the detail I'd like, so I'm just free writing a quick post.

Mastodon is part of the Fediverse. It is much more than a replacement for Twitter. It has its own culture, based on federated servers that anyone can set up with whatever moderation rules they want. Don't come to Mastodon as a colonist from Twitter.

Be sure to explore other parts of the Fediverse. For example, I'm exploring books.theunseen.city, a Fediverse alternative to Goodreads.

I'm finding the activity on Mastodon much more engaged than on Twitter. I think a good way to think about Mastodon vs. Twitter is Community, not Commodity.

More later....

You are the priest the church needs today:
For the fifteen-year-old girl
who was raped
by someone she trusted
who is just uncovering her pain,
and has no one to talk to
especially not a priest.

For the seventeen-year-old transgender woman
who thought the transition
would make everything better,
but still she lives
in the spotlight of loneliness
and wonders if it’s all worth it,
and has no one to talk to
especially not a priest.

For the thirty-seven-year-old mother
who loves her son with muscular dystrophy
more than she can bear
and needs a rest and a loving ear.

For the forty-five-year-old couple
whose life seems perfect
as they help with coffee hour
because they hide the bruises
from their bitter fights so well
and can’t talk to anyone about it,
especially not a priest.

For the fifty-three-year-old wife
whose life did not turn out as planned.
Now she has the same symptoms
her mother had
at the onset of her cancer,
and has no one to talk to,
especially not a priest.

For the sixty-two-year-old homeless man
who tries so hard
to address his substance abuse problems
and put his life back together,
but the ancient traumas are too great,
and no one understands,
especially not a priest.

For the eighty-seven-year-old widow
who has never, in all her life,
let her children know
about her child born out of wedlock
that they always called their cousin.
and it is too late to tell anyone
especially not a priest.

And every day, more people are hurt,
often by the church itself,
and you are needed to be
the priest they can tell.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. The wind blows outside like it is the beginning of March instead of the beginning of April. The crocuses are up but the lilacs have yet to mix memory and desire. It is National Poetry Month.

I have not written for my blog in nearly a year; since National Poetry Month last year. My personal writing had waned as I started seminary and the pandemic put it on a long-term hiatus. Now, God willing, I am less than three months away from completing seminary. Now, God willing, despite the recent variations in the virus and the rising number of cases, large-scale vaccination will get the pandemic under control.

I am hesitant to make a commitment to my personal writing at this juncture. April will be a long hard month, with lots of schoolwork, and made harder by my wife’s upcoming surgery. Yet it is April, a time for new dreams and new hopes. Can I fit a daily poetic examen back into my schedule? Can I write about other things without getting too bogged down in politics or recent schoolwork? We shall see.

In the news, there is talk of a large national infrastructure bill. There has been another mass shooting. The police officer who killed George Floyd is on trial. I’ll skip these for the time being.

In my schoolwork, I’ve started to read some of Homi Bhabha’s The Location of Culture for my class on James Baldwin. I turned in a paper starting to explore some of this for class this morning. There’s a lot to unpack there, and perhaps I will at a later point.

It is also Maundy Thursday. I will help with a vaccine clinic in the afternoon, and then head up to help with the service in the evening.

For the past few years, I’ve been seriously overscheduled. I’ve been working full time and supporting my family as I work on an M. Div. in seminary. The past several months became more overscheduled as I started my internship at a nearby church. Now, we are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Some people are furloughed or working from home with fewer work demands. I am part of a communications team for a health care organization, so I’ve been working harder than ever. Likewise, the church I serve at has moved to online services. As a digital communications specialist, this has resulted in a lot more for me to do for church as well. To top it all off, we are entering Holy Week.

There are so many things I would like to be doing or feel like I should be doing. For our wellness program at work, I had a goal of walking at least 6,000 steps each day. I completed that in January when I was on campus in California. February was not so successful. March was looking really promising until the final few days of the month. April hasn’t started off all that well either.

Also, April is National Poetry Month. Other years, I wrote a poem every day for National Poetry Month. I would have liked to have done that this year. I would like to be journaling every day during the pandemic. I am working on a research paper for my class on Buddhism in the West. I’m exploring the impact of Buddhism on American Poetry and am, among other things, reading Han Shan. Really, I’d love to write a journal/poem each day addressing the coronavirus tied to poems of Han Shan.

Yet I’m tired. Really tired. It doesn’t seem like I should be so tired, especially if I’m not getting time to get out and walk. It occurred to me, this morning, however, that part of the reason I’m so tired is because of the heavy weight I’m carrying, the heavy weight we’re all carrying. It is okay to be tired. It is okay to grieve. It is okay to be sad.

A couple article have been talking about this in terms of productivity. The New York Times has told us to Stop Trying to Be Productive and the Chronicle of Higher Education is talking about Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure.

So, you’ll probably have to wait a little longer for the Han Shan inspired coronavirus journal entry.

Tuesday morning. It is chilly outside. We had a light snow yesterday and some of the snow is still on the ground. Even though I was working from home, it was incredibly busy and today looks like it will be very busy as well. I didn’t get a chance to go on my walk yesterday and I have to figure when I can fit it in for today. It is wearing me down a little.

Yesterday, I heard that the friend of a friend of mine has been hospitalized with difficulty breathing and a high fever. She has not been tested for the coronavirus, but everyone is pretty sure that is what it is and my friend is self-quarantining. She and her partner are very anxious. I also attended an online ordination last night. The priest went to the same discernment retreat as I did several years ago. It was a bittersweet service in many ways. It was supposed to be in Middletown on Wednesday for the feast of the Annunciation, but it was moved online because of the coronavirus. It was a wonderful and joyous ordination, but we could not hug the new priest or congratulate her face to face. There was also a touch of sadness as I continue to see people whose journeys have crossed with mine becoming priests and I am left with no clear path.

With all that is going on, my studies have not been as productive as I would like, but it is reading week, so I don’t have to fret too much about it.

Stay safe, everyone.

This morning is the first time I am working from home on account of the coronavirus. I had the option last week, but many of my coworkers were working from home, so I could actually work from the office and maintain proper social distancing. As things close continue to close down, I have switched to working from home.

I’m trying to keep my new schedule as similar as possible to my old schedule. Some of this is for the sake of productivity. Some of it is for the sake of sanity. Some of this is because I’m interested in how Benedictine rules of life can help in times like these.

I did stay up a little later than usual last night as I dealt with church issues, so I slept a little later than usual this morning. Yet at around 6 AM, I updated the CDSP Virtual Daily Office. I’ve been doing this pretty regularly since the person who originally set it up graduated. I will plan on doing Morning Prayer at 7:30, as is normal, and then having a breakfast of oatmeal and raisins afterward.

This is also reading week for classes, so I don’t have quite the same schedule for my classes. I need to write up what I’m doing for Field Education and continue my research on the impact of American Buddhism on the Beat Generation.

For church yesterday, we had a small group at the church and livestreamed the service on Zoom and Facebook. I edited the video and posted it on Youtube: The Fourth Sunday of Lent - Refreshment Sunday – 2020. We had a few glitches and the video quality was subpar, but the service went well. I got additional ideas on how to improve the broadcast, and I’m looking forward to future broadcasts, assuming I can still get to church to make them.

Related to my research, I’ve been listening to an audiobook “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac as I drive and as I go for my walks. I drive to Hartford as I listen to Kerouac talking about hitch rides to Frisco. I walk around a town park as I listen to Kerouac talk about walking through Harrisburg, PA, trying to find a ride back to New York. It provides an interesting mental backdrop to our world struggling through the coronavirus.

I’m doing a good job of keeping my sleep and exercise regular, which also helps, and work is more than busy. Hopefully, this journal will help as well.

It has been a long time since I’ve written in my blog. I have so much writing for work and for school that I don’t have much energy left for other writing. But we are going into reading week at school. Because of the coronavirus, I will be working from home a lot, which frees up a bunch of commuting time. So, I’m setting out to write a little bit more, at least for the time being.

Today has been an odd day, the first day in a long time that I haven’t felt pressured by deadlines. Sure, I have papers to write for school and posts to write for work, but I don’t really have to work on any of them today. Also, church is canceled this evening.

My big paper for this semester is a research paper for Buddhism in the West. I’m looking at the relationship between Buddhism and the Beat movement. I’m looking at the writings of the ninth century Chinese poet, Han Shan, translated Cold Mountain. Maybe I’ll watch the movie Cold Mountain sometime during this time.

I’m balancing ninth century Chinese poetry, contemporary academic writing, and Kerouac’s On The Road.

It is a mild sunny early spring day. I went to the walking fields in town. The parking lot was full. Fortunately, the area is very spread out, so I walked a lot while managing to keep an appropriate distance from everyone. As I walked, I listened to “On The Road” on an audiobook loaded onto my cellphone as I played Pokemon.

I thought about pilgrimages, loosely defined, and here I could veer off into one of the academic discussion. The pilgrimage in Cold Mountain. The pilgrimage in On the Road. The pilgrimage we are all going through around the pandemic. My personal pilgrimage. We are all on pilgrimages every day. Sometimes, we even notice it.