Echo Chambers

It is easier, with each passing day, to get caught in an echo chamber.

You’re in one now.

Algorithms that feed you links based on your searches, Facebook, blue sky, and all the other sources that offer us information are tailored to our tastes.

In the days before the internet, you had to actively look for the information that you wanted, to support your contentions, now it’s just there, and we take it at face value.

Some of these platforms are more open, like medium.com, where anyone who has a subscription can read anything they want, and even though they still get fed stories that their reading habits indicate they would like, they also can show up in places where they’re not welcome and then, for the most part, they go away. Here they have to subscribe to read stories by authors they like, and they generally ignore the writers who contradict their viewpoint, kind of self-imposed algorithms.

Everyone gets their own echo chamber, this one is ours, for now.

Fry Bread

I learned a good recipe for a cheap, easy bread that immediately became one of my daily staples.

It consists of 1 cup of flour, 1 heaping teaspoon of baking powder, and a pinch of salt, mixed with a cup of hot water, and then poured into a frying pan and cooked until it’s done. It takes about ten minutes to make.

That is the basic recipe, but you can customize it to suit your taste.

The savory version includes thyme, sage, and a handful of shredded cheese.

The sweeter, breakfast or dessert version includes, brown sugar, raisins or other dried fruit, maybe some cinnamon, and walnuts, you can also add hemp hearts to up the protein content.

I eat the savory version at night with chili or in the morning with sausage, and the sweet version as a treat almost anytime.

Magazines

It has never been easy to make a living as a writer, and the internet has made it even harder.

Most of my friends who are professional writers started out when print was dominant and still command a dollar per word for their work.

The first piece I got money for was a short how to article for Men’s Fitness that paid $600.00.

I was recently offered an opportunity to write a four part series on Olympic weight lifting, and they offered me the princely sum of ten cents per word and decided against having me do the writing when I asked for fifteen cents per word.

I think magazines (please refrain from pointing out that magazines use resources. I’m aware of that, but that is not what this article is about) were a better form of communication.

They created their own echo chamber of sorts, but it was not forced on you. You looked for publications that covered subjects that you were interested in or that published works by writers that you liked.

Having magazines was like having a card catalog at the library. The card catalog would have things listed by subject so you could discover more sources of information, and magazines did the same thing. You would get not only writers that you already liked, but would get to discover new writers that you hadn’t heard of.

I read a note the other day, and I don’t remember who wrote it, that wondered how long it would be before Substack decided to start stifling voices and I thought it was an interesting point.

Maybe it’s time to start a magazine.

…and yes, we’re still in a world of trouble, and it’s getting worse, but you’ve heard enough about that. Don’t worry, be happy, when the world gives you lemons, make lemonade (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), smile, it can’t be that bad, meditate on beauty and joy, and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

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