On Silent Walking and Having My Own Mastodon Instance

In an ideal world Silent Walking would make sense. In an ideal world the environment where you walk would be quiet and free from distractions. How many of us live somewhere that is far from cars, road works, construction, farming and other noises? During my walks I hear the sound of a motorway, the sound of a quarry, the sound of buildings being demolished, and the noises of construction. I also hear the sounds of cars driving too fast and too close.

From my introduction you will be misled into thinking that I don’t like silent walking, but I do practice it often. I often walk for an hour and a half and for the first half hour or the last half hour I remove the earphones and I just walk, in the moment. I also cycle without any distractions, ever, except for the GPS and taking pictures, but that’s part of being in the moment, rather than a negative distraction.

I also mindful drive. I don’t turn on the radio for music. I don’t always listen to audiobooks or podcasts. I often drive without the radio on, because of my cycling habit. I don’t listen to anything when cycling because I want to hear the dangerous drivers as early as possible, to turn around, let them see that I know they’re there, so that they behave in a more humane manner.

Lockdown and Silent Walking

lockdowns were a fantastic time for Silent Walking because at the time people were walking, rather than driving cars, so the environment was silent. Without cars walking routes really open up. Without cars you can walk by a motorway without the noise of cars. Without heavy traffic walks that were unthinkable were feasible, because there was little noise pollution, and less danger. I found a lot of new routes during lockdown, which is why I believe we should have more walking paths between villages and towns.

Walking and Danger

I love walking without using the car, but in order to do these walks I need to walk along busy roads where cars are driving above the speed limit, and give no safety margin. If I tripped or fell, I’d fall under a speeding car and they would have no time to avoid me.They’d be left with a mess to clean up.

Noise Pollution

I believe that for Silent Walking, for Mindful Walking, it would make sense to use noise cancelling headphones, with a podcast or audiobook, rather than nothing. As I wrote before, you have the sounds of construction, of motorways, of speeding cars, of gravel pits and more. The silence that they idealise doesn’t exist, so to be mindful requires creating one’s own silence, one’s own white noise.

The Right Values

During Lockdown people had the right values. They gave up on the car, in favour of walking and cycling locally. Not only was the world more quiet and mindful, but so the freedom to walk and explore, without using the car was around. Modern society has lost a lot, by over-relying on cars. If we would walk, cycle, skateboard and more, we would benefit as a society.

On Having a Personal Mastodon Instance

I was mucking around with WordPress, Classic Press and the Fediverse and it was fun. I lost interest eventually because I found that I didn’t especially like the Fediverse. Everything that I hated about Twitter was transplanted onto Mastodon so I declared bankruptcy and deleted two or three accounts, and didn’t really get back into the Fediverse for a while.

Trending Freedom

By having my own instance I found that not only could I avoid having any trending hashtags but I could also see which tags I see, and which ones are muted. By having full control I can control my own experience, rather than relying on the values of others.

Stream Control

By controlling my own instance I start from an empty feed. I can add, or remove individuals or hashtags with ease. In so doing I control how positive or negative the conversations are, and whether I see toxic discussions or not. By controlling what I see, I control how I feel, and that’s important. It means that if I find something toxic, to me, I can remove it. With Twitter and other instances I can’t control the community with as much freedom as on my own instance so it doesn’t take much for something to feel toxic.

Cost Control

If Azure, AWS or Infomaniak had Mastodon as an option for a self-configuring system then I would use that for experimentation. I’m using masto.host because it was the cheapest option, aside from free. With it I can familiarise myself with moderation tools and more, without having to go through the configuration and installation process.

And Finally

One of the key advantages of having my own Mastodon instance is that I need to behave. I need to be more positive, but I also have more control. For some reason the freedom of controlling my own server makes Mastodon more fun. I hope that I will finally stop bouncing from server to server now.