Christina: [00:00:00] Hello. 

Hi Kerry. You're as cheerful and delightful as I have seen you on the internet. 

Kerry: Well, it's only been a few seconds, but, 

Christina: Thanks for doing this. 

Kerry: My pleasure. I love the art behind you.

Christina: Oh, thank [00:01:00] you. So this is an artist out of Montreal. She goes by Nova Mercury. And I had her on the JOMO(cast), her name is Jen Duffin.

And for my 40th birthday, I was supposed to do a weaving class with her at Boku. And it was canceled because of COVID. And so I took my refund and bought this for myself. 

Kerry: And a good conversation piece. Right?

Christina: I know we always end up talking about it. So it's become like my, and I've been like in Vancouver this summer finally.

Cause that's where I'm from. And then we're actually in temporary housing because we're renovating. So it's just it just travels with me. It's like the only continuous part of my life basically. 

Kerry: It's like an anchor. 

Christina: It is like joyful anchor. 

Kerry: Yay. Well it's nice to meet you. 

Christina: You too. Okay. So tell me how you even got a copy of the book. Can you remind me how that came to.

Kerry: From Karen McMullin. Who I'm in touch with, cause I edit the website 49thshelf.com and so she puts Nimbus's books and Vagrant Press on my radar. And your book was just [00:02:00] so up my street that I asked her to send me an early copy and I think we're going to put an excerpt on our site this month, but I'm a little behind on a lot of things and that's one of them, but yeah, she's terrific 

Christina: Can you just let me know how I can assist with that?

Kerry: I think she's even sent me the content. I just have to get caught up on my emails, but she's also, she loved your book too, and said that yeah, she really likes what you're talking about, so 

Christina: awesome. Yeah, you said very kind things. So I really appreciate it. And I'm very eager to dig into more of your work and sort of the themes around how we live well online in these crazy days of the zoom.

Kerry: And I really, I re-read the book on the weekend because I was. I found it really engaging. When you structured the book, did you structure it around the JOMO manifesto? The ideas. Yeah. That's super interesting. 

Christina: Thanks for noticing. Yeah. Most [00:03:00] people don't really know that and I should probably post about that a little more explicitly, I actually have. So I send thank you notes to all of my guests and you'll get a letter press JOMO manifesto in the mail. 

Kerry: Yeah, that's excellent. 

Christina: So yeah, I think they moved around like they're not maybe in the perfect order that they are the way that I've originally written it, not that matters, but yeah, I really wanted to work those in, because.

Commitments is that's the way I think of them really came from the community. Like when the book, when the joy of missing out first came out and I started doing all kinds of things around JOMO, it was like listening and listening and what were the themes and hungers and desires of the community and what they wanted to build in their own lives.

And so I had gathered all this material and I have another writer that works with me on some of my things, and we wrestled these ideas to the ground. And that's what emerged from that. 

Kerry: I love it. Well done. 

Christina: Thanks. Okay. Well let's jump right into it. Okay. Welcome kerry. 

Kerry: Thank you. Nice to talk to you too.

Christina: Where am I speaking with you from today? 

Kerry: I am in my bedroom in Toronto, Ontario. 

Christina: Me too. 

Kerry: Who needs offices, right? 

Christina: Absolutely. Okay, so I like to start with some rapid fire questions. Is it okay if I just ask you a bunch of questions? Like bam. 

Kerry: I think so. Okay. Let's do it 

Christina: on a Saturday afternoon where can we find you? 

Kerry: Walking towards something delicious with my family. 

Christina: What gets you up Monday morning? 

Kerry: My alarm clock. That's about it. I used to get up to go swimming. That was the one thing that got me up early, [00:06:00] but now it's just the alarm. Not much. 

Christina: What's one thing. People wouldn't know if they followed you online.

Kerry: I don't think there is anything to be honest. I'm all about the candor. 

Christina: Amazing. What brings you the most joy and how do you prioritize it? 

Kerry: I should say people books bring me joy, and I prioritize that by keeping my phone beyond arm's reach often.

Christina: Fabulous. And what's your favorite thing to do unplugged? Read.

I see a theme here. 

Kerry: Definitely. 

Christina: Okay. Okay. So you recently published a blog post that caught my attention. Tell me about the opposite of scrolling. 

Kerry: I wanted to write about how inspiring I find online life to be whether it's my blog or social media. And I think part of that is because I view social media as an extension of my blog.

I bring a blogger's approach to social [00:07:00] media and it's all about creating, making stuff, asking questions. I am being active in my online life instead of passively scrolling and just letting other people's lives flash in front of my eyes. I want to be much more deliberate and make something of my own.

And I wanted to talk about how social media has been positive for me and brought me joy, because I think that is a possibility for everybody. 

Christina: Absolutely. I love that so much and honest at what it got me thinking about was, and I know because you've read the new book, good burdens that you know about this was the discovery that I made through the research of Dr. Pamela Publisac, which is that people who are happiest with technology, use it for creativity and community and care. And so when I think about you and the more I learn about you and your work and your approach to all things, internet, it seems like those are the things you're prioritizing when you're going online.

Kerry: Absolutely. And it ties back to the idea that you opened Good Burdens [00:08:00] with, which is that Happiness comes from the warmth of relationships. And I think that's as true online as it is anywhere. And so if we're, if our intention in our online lives is not to network but to have relationships and friendships and real friends, I think social media and the internet can be a meaningful place to be.

Christina: Absolutely. The theme of the season is Good Burdens. JOMO is the joy of missing out on the right things so that we can take up good burdens the people and projects that bring us joy. How would you define a good burden? 

Kerry: A good burden is something that makes my life richer. And as I read your book, I was thinking that blogging is a good burden.

It's so easy to resort to, for the internet to be a place full of convenience and comfort as you write about and blogging, isn't quite like that you have to work to blog and [00:09:00] blogging isn't It's not so much on reader's radars anymore. So you don't, it's not a great way to get attention, really blogging.

It's something that I do for my own personal satisfaction. I use my blog as my workbook to figure things out. It's much easier to put up a flippant post on Instagram or, to text somebody, what's on my mind, a throwaway idea. But my blog is a good burden. It's something I don't have to do.

It's something that takes effort to do. But and when it connects with other readers it's really rewarding because I think there's a depth that comes with blogging that I don't find in other places online 

Christina: is that is your blog. Cause I'm new to your blog, but I've enjoyed it's so very much what I have read and I'll make sure to include all the links to Kerry's work in the show notes, is it a place where you work out your personal practice of writing because you are also an author of books. 

Kerry: Absolutely. My blog is the place where I work out everything and [00:10:00] not a lot of people read blogs anymore. And I see that as real license actually to just use that space and not be conscious of what other people are thinking or how they respond.

I do it for myself. I guess I could use a notebook, getting some kind of reception is also really helpful to the people who bothered to read those places. So yeah, my blog is my workbook. My ideas. I find there's, I've been trying to say my ideas for, 15 years, but we all right.

It's a process. But through blogging, I have also learned to make writing a habit and I have become, I write novels and I learned what my voice is. I think that's a bit precious the idea of my voice. But I used to blog and want to sound like other people. And if you read my blog's archives, which I hope no one will for many years ago, it's me trying really hard to figure out what I want to sound like.

And then at some point, I started sounding like me and I realized what that was. And I think [00:11:00] that made me able to finally write books that someone would want to publish. It's all a part of the same practice. 

Christina: I remember I started my blog to get over my fear of people reading my writing, because I did want to be a professional writer.

This is way back in my early twenties. And it was like that little first toe in the water to say, "Hey, look, world. I write things." And to get that response and to get comfortable in that space. And I love that you're bringing it back. And Kerry leads the blogging school, which we'll talk about. More deeply in a little bit, but I love that you are in a way bringing back the good of the blog.

And it's something I've heard in other places where people are really like, wanting to bring it back because of that deeper, more personal voice 

Kerry: Blogs have context. There was a line in your book. I loved, I think you talked about context confetti or something like that. Every, all the context is broken into pieces online.

And so everything is [00:12:00] divorced of its context. And so when we read something, someone has posted on Twitter or elsewhere, it's really hard to understand, are we the intended audience for that? What are we meant to do with that information? The lack of context is so disorienting and so blogs are fantastic because first of all, I have an idea of who reads my blog.

And so I can write with some assurance that people will understand what I'm trying to express, rather than that paralyzing feeling that social media can bring that anything you say can be misconstrued and twisted out of context, the blog has its own context. And so that's, I think really a safe thing.

But also, yeah, blogs are marginal. Not a lot of people pay attention to them and. I don't say that as a way to be self-deprecating or to reduce them. I think that's really great. I don't think we need all eyes on us at all times. That's really overwhelming. And so when we have a little bit of safety that comes from the context and from knowing, who our readers are, I think that allows us to write more [00:13:00] freely.

Christina: I love that so much. It's true. I think about the amount of exhaustion that we experience on a day-to-day basis, going into those streams, into those feeds and just trying to make sense of a single tweet, right? Like threading it all the way back and then what we've lost 40 minutes and our head hurts a little bit.

Are we the better for it? I'm not sure.

Kerry: And half the afternoon is gone. Yeah. 

Christina: I love that. That there's context there. You wrote to tell me that one chapter in particular from Good Burdens spoke to you. And that was the algebra of joy where I write about how joy occurs when two things wellbeing and success occur simultaneously within us, the experience of joy involves two things: active, noticing and nurturing noticing is about your attention and nurturing is about your effort. You are an expert blogger and teach others to carve out their own personal corner of the internet. How is this experience from your perspective, the same as blogging, the attention and [00:14:00] effort piece, 

Kerry: I think you need to notice and nurture in order to blog or, I think I, my Instagram is the same approach. It's all about paying attention to the world around me and, taking on the good burden of writing about it and processing it and not just letting the world go by taking stock of things. Noticing and nurturing, I think is really important in living deliberately online.

I have lost my track here. 

Christina: That's okay. I can pick it up for a minute. I think the conversation that I had in the early days of my work was around unplugging was the, just runaway from it all. And it's actually, I think the way to joy. Actually much more effortful that we have to pay even more attention, to what we're doing and those spaces to find a path forward that brings joy. So it's not checking out, it's really checking in to what's happening. [00:15:00] 

Kerry: And I think that social media can be a tool for noticing and nurturing and connecting with people who would like to notice and nurture the same good parts of the world.

Christina: How do you put boundaries around that personally? I'd be curious to hear because I know you are extremely active online. 

Kerry: I think that what I said initially about having friends instead of connections is super important with that. Sometimes that can be overwhelming, right? Cause I think I have like couple thousand people who are my friends and well, a lot of people who I don't even know, I feel very connected to. And so that can be a lot when people are going through things and to take on everyone else's troubles and what they're going through. That can be a lot. So I think, yeah, one needs to negotiate boundaries around that.

But I think that real connection that I have to, a lot of people online makes me feel pretty comfortable sharing my life. [00:16:00] I do have boundaries around my children. Not really strong ones. I do put my children online because I think that at all my social media and I don't always say posted with consent.

Cause I feel like that's obvious. I respect my children a lot. But they are a part of my online life because I feel like if they weren't that's a part of my life that I have to sorta cut off. And I have a lot of feelings around that, but I do try to be really respectful to them. And as they get older they have feelings about what parts of their lives they want to share.

And preserving their dignity is, a huge priority for me. So I think that's the one place. It might not look like I have boundaries but I do. But I don't really feel the need for lots of boundaries in terms of telling my own stories, because I've found that talking about the most personal parts of my life have been really liberating.

I think that some of the stories we're not meant to tell because we there's stigma around them and we're [00:17:00] supposed to be ashamed. And so I write about my abortion, which was a thousand years ago, but I talk about it all the time and it's boring almost, but I feel like that's helpful for other people who have had that experience to hear it recognized in such an ordinary way.

But also when you can say the thing that's supposed to be your deepest shame out loud there's really nothing anyone can do to you after that. It's given me a lot of strength in my it, my story is a powerful one and I like to use that. 

Christina: I really like that. The warmth of our relationships is our greatest source of happiness.

It's our capacity for intimate relationships that predict whether we flourish in life or flounder. Do you think that this is related to what we've already talked about, but I want to go a little deeper. Do you think warm and real online relationships--so you would call them more than networks or connections--can create a similar flourishing and contribute to wellbeing? And has that been true for you? 

Kerry: Yeah, absolutely. I have lots of friends that I met online. I think connecting beyond online is important. [00:18:00] But I have so many friends and what's such a joy for me is when you meet an online friend and they're exactly who you thought they would be. And cause sometimes it goes the other way and that can be very awkward.

But I think having those online connections extend into the real world. Like for me, that is how I've met so many people who I consider close friends. Sometimes it's hard though. There are lots of people online who don't share images of themselves or whose names aren't even their actual names.

And so in a way I feel like I know them and they feel like they know me, but I wouldn't know them if I crossed them in the street, and literally don't even know what their names are. Sometimes that's a hard thing for people who are careful about privacy. And then it gets a little bit awkward because yeah, I have no idea who you are.

But for people who are generous enough to share, I think those online relationships are so possible. And I think they're one of the most exciting things that social media and the internet has to offer us. 

Christina: Yeah. I like what you said about taking it a step further [00:19:00] offline. I'm a little bit notorious for befriending people on the internet and then inviting them to be real friends.

It sounds like maybe you are too I take great joy in that. It's surprising for some people because it doesn't happen maybe that often. And obviously it's a little bit more limited during COVID times, but yeah, I've made incredible friends and colleagues that way. 

I wonder if I'm wondering if you agree with this, I have discovered through obviously hundreds and hundreds of conversations about these themes, about technology and joy that, that different people have different capacities for relationship, how many relationships they can sustain. Would you agree with that? I'm curious to know, do you understand? I'm saying 

Kerry: like people have a lot of friends and some people just have a few, right? 

Christina: Exactly. Like some people can sustain a lot. Because I think the questions I often get are around, like how much is too much, when should you log off? And what are the [00:20:00] habits that are going to save the day?

And I find that a very difficult question because. I think different people have different capacities. And I think you, it sounds to me like you're one of those people that has an enormous capacity for maintaining a lot of warm relationships with people. And so for people like you, it seems online engagement is actually quite nourishing.

Kerry: Whereas, it can be for some people... 

Christina: energy-getting, not yeah, not, doesn't take energy from you. And that could be the extrovert introvert spectrum. It's just something I'm deeply curious about, because it seems that people that tend to just in normal life have a more limited capacity for maintaining relationships --that's not a lack, that's just a reality of who they are-- do struggle more 

Kerry: online. Yeah. And it's, I think online too, there's a trap that you write about in your book about how you start to think that liking someone's post especially long distance friends and you're like, oh yeah, we're really close. Cause like I saw that post [00:21:00] that they but yeah that's not warmth, right?

That's not deep and sustaining. There needs to be something more active going on for the relationship to be real and nourishing in the way that I would like it to be, 

Christina: And I think that comes back to love is knowing, knowing yourself and knowing that other person and like what is actually really connecting for the two of you.

And I think a great big basic rule is the more direct the communication, the more intimate it is and often less public. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be private, but it's something about that directness, right? One to one. That creates that kind of warmth. 

Kerry: Yeah. And that's happened with some people I've met online.

I started blogging 20, 21 years ago. I there's a whole bunch of people I met through book blogging around 2005 and six, when that was still like a pretty intimate group of people, even though it's spanned the globe and 

Christina: You have to tell me what platform it was. 

Kerry: I started blogging on diaryland.com. [00:22:00] Which was the most hideous website and it was awful. But when I started blogging about books, Blogspot was the blog that I had. And yeah, I, there were so many people. I feel like books too, are a wonderful thing. If you can love things with other people and be enthusiastic that's a great way to cement those bonds.

And so there's all kinds of people now that I am friends with on social media, who I met through book blogging Such a long time ago and yeah those relationships they've meant a lot to me. They've meant a lot to me. People showing up for me when I've needed people to, but also just people's thoughts and ideas sustaining and nourishing my own writing 

Christina: technology promises and reinforces our desire for control, convenience, and comfort. How do you think that keeps us from living creative lives? 

Kerry: Well you write so beautifully about the need for want, right? We create to fulfill a [00:23:00] want it's about desire. Any kind of creation is about wanting and desire.

And so if all our containers are filled up by the convenience that our phones offer us then yeah there's no room. There's no. For that kind of yearning that I think results in, in creativity. And so I love swimming. Swimming is my favorite thing. And luckily I've got to get back to it in these last few months.

And just for 45 minutes, sometimes I think about the work that I'm writing. But sometimes I don't really think of anything at all. And then I beat myself up a bit cause I wasn't using that time productively, but of course not. 

Christina: Getting your body into great shape 

Kerry: but just like for my brain to just have space to wonder. What I always say in my blogging course is a blog needs room to grow and space to wander.

And I think a brain does too. And so I think Wanting and desire. Those things all go together. And if all your [00:24:00] comforts are met and everything is fulfilled there's no space to do that sort of thing. So yeah, clearing that kind of space is important. 

Christina: I don't often hear people talk about creating space for discomfort.

But that's it's absolutely so important. I think about the moments where I've been most inspired and I'm often cold or uncomfortable in some way. It's not like the pur I'm not in a bubble. I'm not in some kind of like depth, what do they call those?

The float houses where you're in that what is the word I'm looking for? It's the 

Kerry: I've never been in one but I know exactly what you mean. 

Christina: Where there's no stimuli, basically where you're like stimuli free 

Kerry: deprivation. 

Christina: A sensory deprivation tank. That is what I was looking for. Thank you, Kerry. A sensory deprivation tank that is not where desire or inspiration typically spark.

It is in those moments of boredom or discomfort or just where there's space enough [00:25:00] for something new, to be sparked in your heart or your mind. 

Kerry: I love the line you wrote. I'm just looking for it. "You can't move toward joy without wanting. Wanting will get you where you want to go." I think it gets you out of any kind of rut you might be in and ideas about how you should live your life and how life should progress.

I just, I found the way you wrote about desire very interesting and counter-intuitive in a way. It's not just about getting what you need. It's about thinking about what that desire means and where it will lead you to build the deliberateness that you're talking about throughout the entire book.

And yeah, wanting and answering the question of that want is to be active in your life, to be deliberate in your choices and thinking about where you want to go. And that, that can be for the big ideas, what kind of job you have and where you want to live, but also about what you're doing on Instagram on a Tuesday afternoon, what do you want from this place?

Where do you want it to take you? And I [00:26:00] think us considering those questions and that kind of yearning is really important and powerful too. 

Christina: I write in the book and I often talk about this in my program as well around the decision, the questions around asking yourself, was it, is this life giving or life taking?

So this orientation towards life or despair, and I've been thinking about it more, and this, you will know this from reading the book. Good burdens that at the end of each chapter, I write that the goal is aliveness and the purposes love. And I used to ask that question on social media, but in all the spaces of is this life giving or is this life taking?

But now the question for me is. Is this helping me grow in aliveness and is this helping me to love. And if it's not, then that's like the parameter for whether I should be doing it or not. I'm wondering if you have some guiding questions for when you're like online and you're maybe behaving in a way that isn't aligned with what you want to do, do you have a question or kind of a moment of something that gives you pause when you're in those spaces that makes you choose otherwise.[00:27:00] 

Kerry: Well part of it's the way that time goes, if time disappears and you've got nothing to show for it. Then I know that I'm onto something that's bad. But that's, I don't watch a lot of television actually for that same reason. I find that an hour when I'm watching a movie or TV, like just goes by so fast. But when I'm reading it slows down in a way that makes sense for me and makes me feel like I'm really doing something worthwhile with that time. And it's not just about productivity. It sounds like I, I keep returning to this idea that we have to be optimizing and I don't mean that. But I do in a way, optimizing joy, optimizing meaning yeah.

When time disappears, then I don't really want to be doing that. Unless it's, like in real life when time disappears, because I'm spending time with friends or my family like that is wonderful. And that's what we're here for I think. 

Christina: Absolutely. I love that. I [00:28:00] love what you just said about what do I have to show for this?

When you're in an online space, but how that is really different when you're applying. Yeah. I've never heard someone frame it that way. Thank you for that. You wrote a note to me, you said "good online advice, pursue warm relationships and the rest will follow, commit yourself to people who have committed themselves to you."

Why do you think that's a good online advice? 

Kerry: Cause it's a great way to spend your time and you get things back I'm I find so many of the people who I know online inspire me in the best way. And this is cause I'm not following celebrities or influencers necessarily. I'm following real people.

And I find ordinary life can be so inspiring. And so it's someone telling me about the book they read or a recipe they cooked. And these are things that when I think, oh, I'm missing that in my life. It doesn't make me feel a lack. It inspires me to pursue those things to make those recipes and read those [00:29:00] books and Yeah, real people.

Like I think we, can't not overestimate how great that is. And so many people online are pressured to fit into very small containers. And I love how you write about you are not one thing to, in my blogging course, that is if anyone takes away some, if something gets taken away from my blogging course, I want that to be it.

You can be more than one thing. Blogs are a hybrid space and we're all people made up of multitudes. And I think people who can be those multitudinous selves online are, first of all, doing something subversive and wonderful. They're disrupting the algorithm they're messing with it. And I think that's great.

And yeah, the they're inspiring me too. And and people online can show up, like I'm doing a fundraiser right now for breast cancer research. A readathon. People have donated to my read-a-thon, who I've never met and their Instagram friends and that you could say that's [00:30:00] nothing, but I there's real generosity there.

People have been so generous and kind to me. Yeah I find those warm relationships obviously infinitely rewarding. 

Christina: I love that. This is the JOMO(cast) where we explore how embracing the joy of missing out on the right things. Helps us thrive in the digital age. How would you define JOMO or what does JOMO mean to you?

Kerry: In my online life? It means being happy to have my niche. So my favorite blogger ideas is that "well-known blogger" is an oxymoron. Bloggers are inherently obscure. Blogs are inherently obscure and marginal. And for awhile, I thought that meant that I was doing blogging wrong. I thought that I was doing online life wrong.

And then I realized that's what blogs began as, and there's, as we talked about already, there's so much we get from that kind of semi-obscurity there's license and freedom that comes with that. So for me it's missing out on trying to be [00:31:00] everything to everybody. And I'm just so grateful that there's a small group of people who are really committed to what I do.

Christina: Thank you so much, Kerry.

Kerry: You're welcome.