Silencing Myself

It has been more than a week since I have posted anything on FB and I guess it will be that way for some time.

There are many reasons why I'm doing this and some I can't understand why. At times, I responded to some posts, some I felt good about it, while at other times, I regretted doing so in a way. My own posts tend to be something I want to remember, be it family or personal events, academic materials or even music videos (due to my musical interests) and I can recall them back some time in the future, if needed. One thing I have noticed when my posts or replies get to be 'popular', there will be a wave of friend requests. Many times I will simply ignore them but occasionally I do accept them, thinking that the individuals may share similar interests. So recently I accepted a friend request, thinking that the person may be interested in what I post. I do check their profiles before accepting requests (some locked their profiles and then I look at who are their friends), and for the said person, I saw that the person is having health problems but probably the person has scientific interests. However, later the person started to message me in messenger, asking for some financial help. Like many messages from people I do not really know, I ignored it. At the time, I have already tried to shy away from FB. Later, probably out of desperation, the person began to comment on my posts, asking for financial help rather publicly. That caused me to stop doing any further posts. In fact, the first few days after that, I logged out from my FB account.

While I may sympathise with whatever difficulties the person is going through, I do not really know the person and my priority is to help whom I know and those who are closer to me. Even then I have my limits, I can only help when I am abled to do so. I remembered helping somebody and then the person kept asking for more help and turned out to be a nuisance. Given so many commitments that I have, I have only finite resources, and can only help when I have surplus. If I don't, I even suppressed my desires just to make sure my family is well-fed and in emergencies, I'll be able to sort problems out. As expenses tend to soar in recent period, even this possibility seems to be at risk. Right now, I even defer purchasing a multi-purpose printer (which I really need for my job), because the old broken printer can be found to work intermittently after switching it off for a long time. However I'm getting desperate because it doesn't work when I wanted it to. Such is the condition of the (only) printer I have and my laptop too is having problems, particularly the battery. When I asked Prof. Teo to help with my MS Teams problem weeks ago, she asked how old is my laptop. I guessed it was about seven to eight years old. Indeed, I would really like to have a new laptop but this would be among the last in my list at the moment.

Back to my silence in FB, it may go on for some time since many times I don't like what I'm seeing or reading in FB. I can understand that people write things on social media to make themselves feel better but they don't need to put down others (disappointingly). Perhaps, I see such attitude have similarities with those causing fasad in this world at this moment (some form of supremacy).