just us chickens 🐔
I did something a little strange on Facebook.
I switched my profile out of Professional Mode.
Then I blocked a few very weird mystery followers, went through my albums and started changing the privacy settings on a whole bunch of things I hadn't realized were still connected to a much larger audience.
I kept one little public window open.
Think of it as a billboard.
The rest of the house? Much more private.
And that is intentional.
For years, social media has been part of my life — sharing art, photography, Mexico, stories, political observations, random discoveries, things that make me laugh and things that make me worry.
But lately I've been thinking about how much of my life I actually want to live online.
Maybe less.
Eventually, I want to cut back considerably on social media altogether.
Especially if I end up living the kind of life I've been imagining for years — somewhere in Mexico, perhaps in the mountains for part of the year, surrounded by trees and sky instead of notifications.
There's something wonderfully contradictory about that idea.
I'm looking at posts about San José del Pacífico, imagining myself disappearing into the mountains for a while...
…and then I notice everyone talking about Starlink. 😂
Apparently you can run away to the Mexican mountains and still have high-speed internet.
So perhaps going “off-grid” doesn't necessarily mean disappearing anymore.
Maybe it means choosing what gets access to you.
That's really what I'm trying to do.
I'm not announcing that I'm vanishing from the internet tomorrow. My blog is important to me. It's my archive, my witness, my little record of people, places and things I've encountered along the way.
But I don't need every corner of my life to be public.
I don't need thousands of followers.
I don't need algorithms deciding who should see me.
And I certainly don't need mysterious accounts wandering into my little chicken coop asking me for money. 😂🐔
There are only 59 people in my Facebook corner now.
They come from different chapters of my life — Mexico, travel, art, photography, old friends, old acquaintances and people I probably haven't spoken to in years.
That's actually kind of lovely.
So for now, I've left the front window open.
If you happen to wander past, you can look in.
You can say hi.
But I've closed a few doors.
And maybe that's what this next chapter is going to be about:
less noise, fewer strangers, more real life.
Perhaps eventually, fewer screens too.
Because there are mountains waiting.
And apparently, Starlink. 😂
🐔❤️
What would you keep if you decided to make your digital life much smaller?
How much of your life do you actually want strangers to have access to?
Could you imagine living with less social media — or even almost none?
Would “off-grid” mean no internet to you, or simply choosing when and why you connect?
What parts of your life belong online, and what parts should remain yours alone?
Have you ever gone through your old social-media accounts and discovered just how much you had accidentally left public?
Is 59 people actually enough?
What would you do with the time you got back from social media?
Could a quieter digital life lead to a louder real life?
Maybe the next chapter isn't about disappearing — maybe it's about deciding who gets to see the view.
#justuschickens #digitalminimalism #socialmedia #privacy #offgrid #mexico #sanjosedelpacifico #mountainlife #emilys2ndact #secondact #lessnoise #morelife
