I wonder how much time I’ve spent watching other people live their lives; how much time I’ve spent feeling separate or apart. I wonder how many of us are dulled by the faux reality of constant life-streaming.
The preoccupation and fascination with what others are doing – and the unconscious addiction to packaging our own lives for others to see – is it dimming the vibrancy, the creativity, the magic? I feel dull. I feel estranged.
I tell myself I am connected. But I am grossly disconnected. If I see snapshots of it, it’s almost like I was there, right? Almost.
And if I share snapshots then I reassure my hope that somehow I’m connected – reinforcing the illusion that in fact I am worthy because I was there. From behind a screen.
I wonder how much of my brain’s functioning is eaten up by this passive digestion of totally unnecessary and unproductive information. How is my waking reality affected with a constant running stream of other people’s business running like a processor in the background?
Data crunching.
I wasn’t built for crunching other people’s data. Other people’s special moments and dull moments and insecurities and grasping and inner-ponderings. I wasn’t built to broadcast my own to say “I’m somebody, I was there, with them, doing that.”
How much of myself have I lost to the chattering stream of curated personas? How does the heart play in that game? I wonder. Celebration, for certain. But over-engagement must take a toll.
What would I have now, today, had I been spared all that data?
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