“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - CG Jung
The following is something of a confession. It has to do with an incredibly toxic relationship that I’ve been involved in since the year 2010.
It didn’t start out that way, but then again, most things don’t. So let’s start with the honeymoon phase.
While I grabbed my first smartphone in 2009, all I used it for was internet and texting. So we’ll start this story in the year 2010. This is when I took the great leap of faith (well, more like a timid testing of the waters) and activated a Facebook account.
I added all of the people I knew “in real life” (more on this later). This consisted mainly of friends, people I went to school with, and family I hadn’t spoken to in years.
My timeline was flooded with pictures of people’s pets. Pictures of backyard cookouts. Banal announcements about things that absolutely nobody outside of the poster even remotely cared about. And this isn’t to say that the caliber of my announcements were any better.
No, mine consisted of absolute bangers such as,
“On my way to work…hate doing inventory!”
Needless to say, I had no idea what I was doing on there. But nobody else did either. And this is what made it so great.
In the last piece I wrote, I mentioned experiencing extreme anxiety while in recovery meetings, and that staring at my phone made for a great distraction, though looking back on it now, I can’t help but wonder if doing so may have in fact increased my anxiety.
And if it didn’t, what came next most certainly did.
Things shifted on Facebook. It was no longer just another way for grandparents and exes to spy on you, it was now something of a digital soapbox where everybody had a bullhorn. Where there used to be boring and derivative posts about the work day, there were now boring and derivative political slogans. The difference is that while the former could be at worst, annoying, the latter had the potential to be rage-inducing.
And boy did I ever get pumped full of rage.
I think back on the various things I’ve been angry about since I first logged on in 2010, and I realize that many of them contradict each other. I, like many other millennials I know, have waffled on so many issues at this point that to take another stand against anything would almost certainly be to the betrayal of whatever cause I was championing ten years ago.
But that doesn’t matter in digital space. What matters is being angry about the right thing going on now. And there’s always something to be angry about now. And if you don’t know what you’re supposed to be angry about, your online friends will have no trouble pointing you in the right direction.
We often think that there’s a distinction between “online” and “real life”, but I’ve come to the realization that while our conscious mind thinks this is the case, the subconscious mind does not differentiate the two. To the subconscious, an experience is an experience. And it is from these experiences that the subconscious assembles something like an unspoken rulebook for our lives. I mean for fuck’s sake, that initial panic attack that I wrote about in my last piece created a new set of rules that lasted for a decade.
My conscious mind knew there was no real danger. My subconscious begged to differ, and until I found a way to feed it new rules, panic became the order of the day.
And as far as sets of rules go, the rage, paranoia, and downright hysteria I’ve experienced during my time on social media are no different.
So let’s go ahead and start with rage.
I spoke about the digital soapbox on Facebook, and while it is still incredibly unhealthy, at least I can tell myself,
“Wait, I actually know this person. They’re not that bad offline.”
X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) is a different story.
It’s just you and a bunch of strangers, and whoever shouts the loudest usually wins the likes.
It is here that you are certain to find the absolute worst examples of your ideological opponents. And then what you get to do is watch your favorite digital avatars (who are also hopelessly addicted to this thing) rip them to shreds. This in turn provides a cheap high, but much like any high, the pros are few and the cons start adding up fast.
You may find yourself becoming angrier, more prone to arguments with friends and family, and quicker to judge that stranger walking down the street as belonging to the outgroup.
If you don’t, consider yourself lucky. And maybe this is just my problem. I did state that this was a confession, after all. Though I somehow doubt that I’m alone in this.
I have found myself hate-following ideological enemies, whacked out conspiracy theorists, and people with obvious agendas that I don’t like.
None of these people even know I exist. And yet I wait for them to predictably post something that I deem inflammatory and then go straight to the replies in hopes of watching them being ripped to shreds. This doesn’t tend to happen. Instead I’ll encounter the replies praising them to high heaven before I can find the negative ones.
You know, the ones I’m looking for.
Can we say Masochism, anyone?
Here’s the thing. I mentioned that these people don’t even know I exist. They shouldn’t. And I shouldn’t know that they exist either. The only reason I do is because this is what I choose to subject myself to.
You could argue that it’s good to stay informed. But what am I going to do with information that is patently false? Am I going to convince said person that they’re full of shit and should stop spreading such poison throughout the digital ecosystem?
No.
And not only have I infected my conscious mind with this poison, I’m also stuck with an imaginary scenario in which a person I’ve for all intents and purposes made up (since all I have is an avatar to work with, and maybe some YouTube interviews) is being discredited and disgraced for saying a bunch of dogshit that I shouldn’t even know about, let alone dedicate the time and energy to discredit. And this entire stage production is taking place nowhere but in my own mind, taking up mental real estate that could house far greater things than what I’ve decided to store there.
This concludes my section about rage, now we’re going to move on to fear, and where I’ve managed to pick up this little brain worm.
There’s a social media platform called Nextdoor. It consists of the people that live in your area. Now, this is another one that could be used for positive things, but I have most certainly not used it in a positive way.
I live in a city.
Crimes happen in cities. This is nothing new.
I don’t see this changing any time soon. But where I used to read about the big ones in the paper, or see them mentioned on the evening news, now I get to hear about all of them. And not only the crimes in my city, but more specifically, the crimes in my neighborhood.
And these aren’t even necessarily verified crimes. No, anyone can say anything on there, and believe me, everyone does say everything on there. This thing has the potential to turn your neighborhood full of million dollar homes into something resembling Gotham City.
Well, not in reality, but does that matter? No.
Because once again, the subconscious writes the rules based on your experiences, not reality, and if your experiences consist of being menaced with apparent crimes happening around you non-stop, well then, it decides that you are being menaced with apparent crimes happening around you non-stop.
If all you’re looking at all day are fuzzy pictures of tweakers stealing packages off porches, prowling yards and stealing catalytic converters, then this in fact becomes all that you see.
I could go on about this, but you get the gist.
Both the rage and the fear examples I’ve given are things I’ve actually experienced as a result of over-indulging these online environments. The rage, the righteous anger, the fear and feeling of utter powerlessness are a direct result of drinking from poisoned troughs.
And while it may be poison, we all know that poisons can sometimes be addictive.
I’ve given this confession today in hopes that if this applies to you, that it may give you pause, and consider what you, and you alone, have been willingly subjecting yourself to. And then maybe question whether you’re gaining anything by doing so, and if not, do you really want to keep doing it?
You may be wondering why this piece is titled ‘The Empty Room’, and I will finish with this.
If someone from another planet (or earlier period in history) happened to catch a glimpse of you partaking in this poison, what would they see?
Some jackass sitting by themselves in an empty room, rubbing their fingers around on a glass screen that they just can’t seem to peel their eyes from.
At the end of the day this is all it is. And it’s all it’s ever been.
An empty room.
May you all be well.