Yes, but sometimes..

It’s odd to think of one’s self as an experiment, but that is exactly why we are burdened with algorithms.

I don’t necessarily like to shake things up (i.e., still have my 2020 lockdown hairdo, am in the 42nd year of a second marriage, etc.), but I do like to keep at least the shopping algorithms guessing.

Cyber-based manufacturers have no solid idea about me, except that I am likely a woman. A clothing store whose pricing defies logic pops up on my feed (elsewhere).

I cannot bring myself to click on Temu-anything just to rile things, but I get middle-of-the-road (and up) offerings from everywhere else.

What’s really funny is that many pop-ups think I’m a large woman. The only place that I am a “plus” of any kind is in my own mind, but I keep clicking and then thinking, “Where was THIS hide-y jewel of a long top all those years when I could’ve been mistaken for an Army vehicle??” (We women are too hard on ourselves.)

Fortunately, though, algorithms work well enough to re-feed some Ignatian Lenten things, too — like a praying suggestion. If you know Ignatian prayer modes, you know there are far more steps than this, but the suggestion is based on the Jesuit Daily Examen:

Make a resolution in the morning and examine it at night to see how you did.

It’s so simple, yet so real. That is the beauty (I find) in Jesuit anythings. Mary Oliver speaks to the same simple but real in her lovely poem, Praying.

❤️
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