u/Strong_Letterhead638

I’m not saying no one should ever have a strong opinion. Some things deserve strong opinions.

I’m talking about how everything turns into a moral purity test now. You’re either fully for something or fully against it, and if you hesitate or point out an inconsistency, people act like you betrayed them. The same crowd will praise something one week and condemn it the next like they didn’t just switch sides overnight.

Nuance doesnt matter. Context barely matters. Everyone just wants to take the strongest possible stance on everything so they can stand out and get attention and can be on the “right” side of whatever the current thing is. It’s exhausting. Upvotes and likes are starting to be taken way too seriously by people, and people are desperate to give whatever edgy or contrarian opinion gets them the most attention and likes that day.

Half the time people I see arguing are arguing just for the sake of arguing. I could say “the sky is blue” and a group of people would assemble to tell me how wrong I am about the sky. It’s insane.

I’ve been going to a bunch of local libraries because I want to get away from screens and look at actual books. Not ebooks, not another app, not “Libby” or “Hoopla“. I want to browse shelves, flip through pages, and find something interesting in person. I want to feel the texture of the page and smell the faint scent of the ink.

But every library near me feels like it’s mostly computers now. I shit you not, one of them had literally two shelves of books and the rest of the room was a bunch of kids playing Roblox. Even my main city library has multiple floors and their entire collection of books was on the first floor where it was maybe 10% books and 90% computer stations. I even checked out my local community college library and it was a similar ratio of books to computers, except the little shelves they had were all half empty.

I asked about books about Drawing. Literally just any drawing book. and they basically said, “We don’t have any, but they’re on Hoopla.”

I get that libraries need computers and digital stuff. I’m not against that. But it’s sad what libraries have become. I know there are outliers in every state but for the most part, they are shells of what they once were. Maybe I’m just a cranky millennial who needs to get over it.

EDIT: I am sharing my own experiences. If yours are different, that’s fine. Not all libraries are the same. You don’t have to assume I’m lying or imply you read more books than me just because I prefer physical books. Also I’m allowed to complain if I want to.

Everything online feels like FOMO or an ad, and you can’t even trust recommendations because half of them are either bots or paid marketing. I want to get more into stuff like bird watching, gardening, walking around outside, reading, drawing, learning a new language, or just paying attention to nature. it feels different because it’s already around us and nobody can really control it. And it’s too boring for lots of people because it’s not flashy or constantly feeding you new stimulation. This is a positive in my opinion. It’s like algorithm armor. Companies can try to sell binoculars, but they can’t control the birds. Yet…