It is infusion day, so I am sitting at the hospital with a needle in my hand and a drip dropping away some random crap into my blood stream. It doesn't take too long for the treatment now, but the recovery is still going to take a week for me to get back to my new normal self - which isn't a lot of fun either getting there, or being there - but better than the alternatives.
I was talking to some friends this morning about the current time it takes to manage everything in life and crypto and how while I enjoy all the things I do, the time it takes to do it is the issue. at some point, I am going to have to consolidate my personal resources across all "asset classes" to be able to satay abreast of it all. Currently, I feel like I barely get anything done though I am constantly doing. Still, I prefer it this way, than not having enough to do.
Some people don't have enough to do.
This morning, a friend asked why he has the urge to fact check and teardown all kinds of things he reads on Twitter, similar or people say these days, even if it is meant to be humorous. I asked him if he seriously wanted an answer first and as he was adamant he did, I replied with something along the lines of:
Twitter and similar are part of the problem. It is about point scoring and Google'd intelligence. No one needs to actually know anything, they just have to be able to find an article that supports their current argument or, an article/info that cuts down that of the other.
Because it is mostly done online and there is a lack of accountability, there is no need for an individual to actually be consistent, as they can move from one frame to another, focusing on the immediate moment - reinforcing and cutting-down as they need, scoring some points, and move on to the next isolated topic. It is all divided, compartmentalized and independently considered for point scoring, not improvement.
As I see it, most people are no longer creative, they are consumptive and are relay networks for injected narrative. They feel that they are "doing something" because they are googling answers for responses, and are funny based on the memes they spread. It is the same as how making a cake from a packet mix, doesn't make you a baker.
And because of the lack of need for consistency, nuance is dead. People can be extreme in the moment in ways that they wouldn't be in real life through the filter of face-to-face discussions. This is perfect for the media, as it is sensationalizing and polarizing, creating drama and argument. It is all designed to feed the pay-per-click revenue models that the vast majority of the internet relies on for revenue - Something like 95% for Facebook, 85% for Google.
So, the "urge" you get to poke holes in the arguments of others, even when they are not arguing, is essentially because you have been primed through culture and habit of the internet to do so. The less time you spend with real people practicing real human interaction, the worse it gets. And because most people are doing this now in some way and often heavily, they are consuming more, sharing more narrative, creating less for themselves and the problem escalates.
Many people are scared to create these days too, because people are primed to pick holes in it and take the worst possible view of it, rather than realize that we are all on a spectrum of right and wrong, and a continual path of learning. The problem I see is, we are no longer learning through trial and error, we are relying on being told what is correct by the very same organizations that are driving for and are incentivized by the conditions that separate us.
While in conversation, this was a stream of thoughts, it is because of these kinds of things that I spend far more time creating than consuming, something that many people fear, because of the judgement. It is only natural, because like my friend, we spend so much time tearing down others, that we fear putting anything of ourselves out there, which means what we perpetuate are the words of others. This is us self-censoring and turning into mouthpieces for other people's ambitions.
People want to be right in the moment, without necessarily being right in general, so they rely on the "accepted" view that supports the argument of the moment. You know those people who compete hard and "win" all the time, but never have what they want? I think this is part of that mechanism, where experience is gamified to give us the sense of accomplishment, even if we are not accomplishing anything that improves us or our world. The feeling of knowing, even if it doesn't lead us to practical change that makes our lives better.
We spend so much time on the driven narrative, that we no longer have time for ourselves and when we do, we bury our face into more narrative consumption, more entertainment, more avoidance - rather than spend time creating for ourselves to discover who we are and what we really need to be our best, feel our best, live our best.
It gets to the point that "looking after ourselves" is too time consuming and difficult, as it gets in the way of consuming the content of others, taking part in the argumentation of the narratives that have no bearing on our immediate lives, but make us feel like we matter. Yet, we don't matter enough to ourselves to do what we need to practically do to feel valuable. We are Google bots, distributing the words of others in an attempt to be relevant in a world where ironically, the only way to be relevant is to do something that adds practical value.
Practical takes work though and, there are no guarantees of success and along the path, means accepting that it is a process of trial and error, meaning we are going to be wrong a lot.
No one has the time to be wrong, so we just keep repeating what others say is right.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]