My Sunday started as other typically do. Having slept in a little bit, well, until around 6am, I have accomplished most of what I wanted to this morning. Prepared breakfast, grocery shopped, a few minor cleaning tasks, and even read through three chapters in a book, watched a documentary and did some research. All before noon.
Am I an overachiever? No.
Doing exactly what relaxes me and needs to be done. Aside from the grocery trip, all pretty relaxing. What did I do different from millions of other Americans?
From the time I got up, and even now, I have not logged on nor interacted with social media. What!?
This means no Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, WhatsApp, etc. To hell with it all!!
None. When I complete this entry, I will post to Twitter and Instagram and then go back to living my life without “influence”.
There comes a time when you must unplug from it all. I did not too long ago, and for several months. Doing so brought me back from the brink of death. Yes, death. My depression, anxiety, and stress were so great, I felt ending my life would have been fitting and ease myself of the deep rotted pain. This is where you make an arrogant and narcistic thought towards my life, or this interests you, therefore you will read on.
Thinking back to an abusive childhood, depression and anxiety came in my teens as the natural occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD as you know it. Of course, this was the 90s and going to your primary care physician to have them prescribe you chemicals was a norm, more so now than then. For the most part, I dealt with my mental health just as others do, very poorly. Alcohol, food, and any other addiction to fuel serotonin to my brain. We all do it, just differently. Those increments of pleasure and joy, it can all come from different channels, avenues, and places. Is it healthy?
What happened next in my life, happened for others as well. Millions, ok, billions of others. The internet brought forth social media. This changed my life.
Here is the issue with social media, and the internet in general. Just like anything, moderating your consumption is key. Which is hard, as it is a living breathing cesspool that has now become the channel for sharing our lives, and data. This alone brought upon a pandemic not one doctor or health organization can control or cure. It is killing our society.
Twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, non-stop visuals, stories, pictures, videos, etc. flood these mediums. This is where it is seriously fucking up people.
What you see on social media from “influencers” is fake. It is there to sell a lifestyle, a dream, an alternate reality. One in which people began to think and feel, “That is how it is supposed to be.”
This goes for everything. An influencer is more than someone popular. It can even be your neighbor who posts pictures of their picture-perfect yard in which you drool and ask for tips. Yes, you have been influenced and have been for years. Problem was, before the vast expanse of the internet, you had choices. Watching television, reading magazines, newspapers, and even literature influence. It builds a narrative in our minds to which we feel we must meet or exceed. Why?
Because our biological need to fit in and for belonging stems back millions of years, well, even a hundred years, to the fact we operate better in tribal systems. This, I will explain more in-depth at a later time, but remember it. Hell, research it. By the way, research does not mean asking Google or Siri a question and cherry picking off the top five sites that it returns. This is how the internet is destroying us. Cognitive dissonance is growing rapidly by the year.
Let us think about how we feel. Seriously, ask yourself these questions.
Is your life exactly what you want it to be?
What made you feel your life should be like this?
What are you missing in your life?
Are you where you want to be financially?
What is it you desire?
If love, happiness, and health did not come in as any of the answers, you need to unplug and refresh your “system”.
Social media, mainstream media, narrative-based sites, and so on all work on making you feel you the exact opposite of how you are biologically created to feel. It is all based on making someone or something MONEY.
New material possessions will help you feel good for a minute, but that is it. Those who have them will tell you, they do not solve depression or anxiety. In most cases, they bring on more. Think about it. How did you come about these possessions?
From the way you look, act, crave to what you desire and how you picture life is all force-fed to you via social media and in fictional works.
In the simplest way I can describe it, and in few words as I can:
We were biologically created a certain way, and since birth, 95% of the planet’s humans go against every aspect of our original purpose. From the way we eat, treat one another, live, all the way to our vast love to destroy, conquer, hate, kill our planet and create waste.
Think about what you need to live comfortably.
Nutritious food, water, shelter, love, and to belong. We have perverted all of these as a species. There is a lot of mental and physical sickness, disease, crime, sadness, handicaps, etc. that would not exist if we had not altered our basic needs. We always want more.
Which makes us sick.
Which makes us murder.
Which makes us sad.
Which separates us individually and keeps us from unity.
Which will destroy us all…. if we continue this path.
dK