Connection

This was written long ago, an expressively exaggerated amount of ago that helps me create distance and denial about where my mind is now. Since noting these feelings in the time of long ago, I have become part of the problem, so now I feel okay. Soon you will understand.

There is a particular kind of madness that emerges within me in the face of isolation. My isolation isn’t absolute; there are people, yet I am alone. I view society through a lens that is fixated on the bottom of the asphalt of the downtown cityscape. Crowds of people continually walk all over me, and I just sit and watch their behaviors. This is particularly analogous to social media, where it often feels like I am screaming into the void, in hopes that my presence lands somewhere like a message in a bottle, drifting in the endless ocean of people and opinions.

I have become noise.

Becoming noise isn’t what I worked so hard for, but I really have worked hard. It isn’t clear that this is any qualifier that I deserve to transcend the noise. What determines people’s worth? It isn’t too different from the ways of currency; people determine each other’s value based on how desired a person is. The more that a person’s attention is spread thin, rendered scarce, the more that people desire that person’s attention. There are other factors too, but this is somehow a disgustingly popular way to determine who’s worthy.

Sometimes the pace of my life is fast. I’m wanted, people ask or even offer to pay for my attention. Other times I am left feeling neglected, brushed to the side. The crowd dissipates and people who frequented my attention leave me, as if I’m just a stranger. Sometimes I feel betrayed. Other times I feel I was insane to even think that I mattered to anyone.

Such a vicious cycle permeates the flow of my life. My website views probably track with my mood. Up and down, fantastic and tragic, accelerating through the fast-lane and decaying in a stagnant pond, festering with despair.

In moments of social desolation, the picture of society takes on a new kind of “clarity”. It is apparent that so much of our comfort within this dystopia comes from human connection, bonding, and the endorphins that numb us from the pain of reality. The corrupt tendency of humans to cozy themselves from their own misdeeds becomes increasingly apparent in the silence of loneliness. You begin to hear people as they deal with the devil, to raise their own statuses above others. The whispers in the walls don’t lie, they tell all.

Machiavellianism is the way of life in today’s world.

I am tethered to other people’s opinions and minds which is something that truly bothers me. Conformity is demanded of me at gunpoint. The truth is trapped inside of me, for the sake of my own survival. If I am to speak, it is heresy. There is a constant sense of walking on eggshells in the middle of the night, hoping not to wake the beast that is human connection. Somehow this pleasant experience of bonding has managed to render society into a fascist machine of death, destruction, and chaos. It appears to be fueled by party animals and those gasping for air, willing to drown others for their own survival.

Despite that it feels so, I am not truly alone. Instead, I am joined by the masses of others who share my pain, but this sharing occurs without a sense of bonding. We are silenced. We are left to the side, as bystanders to the horrors of society being platformed by social media.

My mind is addicted to ruminating about the ways I should be for other people. I wish to be useful. I wish to matter. I wish to survive. I wish for the distracting opium of connection so that I no longer need to be burdened with the awareness of badness that tinges all walks of life.

As I said before, I am now part of the problem, so I wish to be congratulated on my newfound state of “fine”. Please congratulate me in the comments or whatever.

Check out the book I just finished, The Psychonet. It explores many ideas from this blog and is designed to make you feel alive, emotional, and maybe terrified. It uses AI art and depicts a story about AI.

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