Pigeon Friend & Slower Internet

11 Jan, 2026

I've started building up new, slower internet for myself. My goal, essentially, is to impede my daily desire to run to the trough of content the moment I feel a tinge of boredom. Instead, I want to have a curated list of things - books, movies, blogs, whatever - that I work through and enjoy rather than waiting to see what slop the algorithm has for me.

I'm not going to pretend I've been 100% successful this past week in weaning off of the teat of easy consumption. When stressed, a la the national and international news coming out of the USA this past week, I just want to turn to a stream of people who feel like I feel, who can assure me that this is not normal™️. It's a bit how work and relationship stress makes me crave fast food and ice cream - something easy that can keep me amped up, prepared to fight something I have no immediate means of fighting.¹

Slowing my internet consumption, on days when I stick to the diet, has had a positive effect. I downloaded the app Feedly (if you know of a better RSS reader, please let me know at moevan43@gmail.com) and started to subscribing to a mix of Bear Blogs and creators I already knew I liked. It allowed me to create a "feed" that was less of a trough and more of a three-course meal. The free Feedly app lets you put subscriptions into three different folders; I've called mine "News," "Happy," and "TTRPG" respectively. It's a lot easier to consume what I'm ready for in the moment² rather than have something else attempt to guess what I want based on my location data, past viewing history, and device.³

One blog/website I added to my "Happy" folder was the website, 10,000 Birds.⁴ It's a long running website that has several daily contributors to talk about all things bird. I'm not exactly a birdwatcher; the idea of (quietly) tromping about in exotic rain forest with binoculars to catch sight of a "lifer" bird isn't something I really ever aspire to do. Instead, I'm more of a bird enjoyer. When I see a bird, from angry crows in a Walmart parking lot to European starlings splashing each other in a bird bath, I just feel a sense of joy. I mean, how else you can you respond to the feathery gits, singing their little heads off, whirling through the air, and strutting their fluffy stuff? The promise of 10,000 birds in my feed is precisely what has been delivered, each article bringing me a little dose of simple joy.⁵

This article, The Stigma of "Common" Birds, and Why It Never Quite Holds Up, was my favorite of the past week. It speaks exactly to the type of bird-guy I am. I have no idea what species of bird I'm looking at, but there's so much to enjoy in it just doing its own birdy activiites:

You step outside, onto a balcony, or along the same familiar stretch of road, and the birds are exactly where you expect them to be. There is no need for a guide. No pause to double check an identification. Just the usual cast, doing the usual things.

If I'm striving for a slower Internet, one that's intentionally curated, where content is meant to be not just passively viewed but actually engaged with (through response posts or even just thinking about while washing the dishes in silence), I can't just open the trough and settle in.nI have to pause and recognize beautiful things as they appear into my life, even if I'm the only one bearing witness to it.

About two years ago, my wife and I moved into our first house. I took this photo on the day before we moved in of two pigeons sitting on the power line above our detached garage:

To the best of my limited birding ability, these two are Mourning Doves. In the early morning, when my wife was already at work, I'd stand on my back porch with a cup of coffee to find these two watching me right back. They were the first neighbors who I met in the new place, and unlike the human ones, didn't steal my bike after the first night.

For the past two years, these fellows have been the first to adorn the power line behind my house, usually close to the transformer. As I put out food for my dog,⁶ starlings and Carolina wrens usually join them, but give some distance to their larger cousins. When I'm inside getting dressed for work or undressing after a long day, I can hear them cooing softly to one another. I didn't recognize the low "hoo-hooo" call as theirs at first. I thought there was an owl nearby (you know, "who who" and all that) and I even worried for the safety of my dovely friends. It was a good day when I saw one of them cooing from the safety of their favorite tree, a lonely cottonwood in a nearby empty lot.

Another line from the 10,000 birds article, emphasis mine:

You realise that common does not mean simple. It does not mean dull. It does not mean unimportant. It simply means familiar, and familiarity only loses its value when we stop paying attention.

What I hope for myself as I decouple my attention from Reddit and YouTube is that I can let myself be satisfied without novelty. I don't need to keep refreshing the same screens or scolling endlessly hoping for something new to stave off the frightfulness of living in the moment. Instead, I'll be able to turn my attention to the little (and big) things around me in the real world. I'll be able to find pleasure and joy in the same two little birds who stop by in the morning to greet me and the morning.