How I stay connected (Bear Blog Carnival)

07 Jun, 2026

Iphone told me that I have around 3h of phone screen time. But I already neither browse nor text people through social media (consistently). The majority of the time was spent on reading manga instead, though it's tapering off as I have exhausted the pile of legible (not even masterpiece) manga and don't wish for more. Any case, it means that I am already not on social media.

For the few people I stay connected with, I use Messenger (friends back in Vietnam)¹ and Telegram (friends met in Singapore). For Vietnamese friends, we chat maybe once every 2-3 months for random reasons such as one of us see something funny or have something to do like when I go back home and want to schedule to meet them. For Telegram, we chat to make appointments to meet in real life. It only started around 2 weeks ago, thanks to a single sociable friend I have met and been with ever since I came to Singapore. (I couldn't have survived 4 years in Singapore without him - should buy him a big birthday gift later). And sometimes I appear in Simple Chat/Grizzly Gazette server Matrix.

Now I want to address a big thing (for me): Discord. Have you heard about people whose daily human interactions consist solely of talking with people on Discord? Until last week I was one of them. I exit the server recently. Different from Mr Churchill², the server is getting more out of me than me out of it.

The biggest reason was the type of person I have become. I find myself in an antsy state, frantically checking Discord and joining conversation despite the time - working hours, cooking, dinner, even in the toilet. That's the opposite of what I want to become.

And also the type of interactions. I was part of a private server for viewers of a niche livestreamer. Typical members are middle class males between the age of 16 and 25 with interests in game, manga, anime, world politics, basically all the common sedentary pastimes of people online too much and receive too little affection from family or friends (let alone members of opposite sex). In other words, a bunch of needy virgins wanting an ear. So 90% of the interactions are mindless talking past each other. I had been in there for nearly 2 years and get to know a few amazing people that I feel like having genuine conversations with. But the rest?

And the atmosphere. People coming here from watching a livestreamer at a time where you should be dead asleep. In other words, bored boys, lost boys, comfortable bourgeois boys, with no purpose, no goal, no motivation, just looking to squander the limited time³. Any kind of ambition cannot exist in this Neverland. And I don't want to stay just a Peter Pan. If I ruin my life and kill myself, I prefer at least being Kafka or Nietzsche - getting all my writing out of me first before going bonker⁴.

In the end, I have to go. I was imagining a grand gesture, but decided against it, just quietly exit (again⁵). No one has asked me what happened so far. Maybe no one really cares.

Now, staying connected to the world. I must say that I am not disciplined enough in this context. There are a thousand random ways I may seek out information in times of boredom.

I visit Substack for articles to read. I check Reddit through Redlib frontend daily for certain subs such as r/opencode for useful new features such as dynamic context pruning. I read one opposite party writer in Singapore. I check Hacker News. I read long articles from magazine sometimes. The things I want to read, I save them to Readwise Reader. The weird writers I like, such as Ed Zitron or Henrik Karlsson, I use the RSS feature to subscribe to them. Digital minimalism demans that I should pick only the essential and best in class. I am nowhere near the minimalistic state yet, but frankly, I am happy with the current setup.

I guess that's it.

P/S: I was banging out my thoughts and felt good about myself while writing this Carnival post, but then I read James' post and suddenly self-conscious about my informality 😅. Maybe I should have edited my post differently?

#post #thought