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Wolves vs Likes

Media is a real forest full of dangers and mysteries

By Cosmin ChildPublished 2 years ago 11 min read
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Wolves vs Likes
Photo by Thomas Bonometti on Unsplash

Hello,

I’m Daniel. I write to you from the yard, from the first hour of the morning, with the sun’s rays touching my keyboard and making it warmer than my fingertips, while I press the button. Today I preferred to write to you slightly scratched by the cold, with a sweatshirt on me and a hood pulled over my forehead.

I have a hot coffee next to it, from which steam comes out more like an old locomotive; I took a sip and felt my throat burn. I estimate that by the end of these lines, it will be colder than a woman’s feet slipping into bed and trying to warm up, sticking her feet in the man’s bottom. :))

I have a message in mind that I want to send you, honestly, it is the result of a rather complicated mental gymnastics, so I prefer to write to you here (instead of publishing an article in this direction).

It’s a perfect newsletter for you if, lately:

⚫ you feel overwhelmed (you have the feeling that you are running between tasks and that you have almost no time);

⚫ you feel that you no longer have clarity, that your mind is blurred, and that you no longer see where you are going;

⚫ that you are tired and that you only want a 1–2–3 day break (it could be weeks or months);

⚫ that you are frustrated with the results you have, compared to the effort invested;

⚫ if you feel yourself knocking on the door repeatedly, instead of opening it;

⚫ that you find yourself contradicting the people around you, trying to change opinions that seem like impregnable walls, of a medieval fortress, with ditches full of water around you, with sharp spikes pointed at you and archers on battlements, ready to bring you down;

⚫ but also if you feel more impulsive than usual (say or do things you regret later);

It is not a “random” list of negative attributes, as described above. They come in higher and higher waves on my email, through the messages received.

I will give just one example, at the moment, so as not to make this newsletter very difficult:

“I crawl. The phone rings, I answer, I write down, I cook while I make excel tables, I eat while I sketch and a presentation that I have to teach in the evening, always in the evening, I answer emails in the parking lot, while I wait the child, from school — all at the same time, although it seems physically impossible. […] I have traces of pilaf on the keyboard, but I’m happy that I don’t even go to the office anymore. “ Lavinia

For me, the emails I receive are a sensor. A mirror. Because, the moment I answered Lavinia, I answered myself.

Two mantras of modern life: “I don’t have time!” & “I’m tired!”

In my increasingly emotional conversations with my readers, friends, or family members, I feel more and more anxious. An almost imperceptible rush. A perception that we are always late. This is also against the background of an accentuated fatigue, which does not seem to come out of my wrists.

The pandemic and, more recently, the war — we’ve kind of stretched our nerves to the limit. Life seems hard, harder than ever in the last 20–30 years (?) We are still waiting for that reset button, in which to end completely with medical panic, masks, vaccines, and social isolation. We are still waiting for that reset button, in which we will no longer hear the word “war” in discussions with friends.

We are still waiting for that reset button, which will bring us … the peace we felt in 2018.

Unfortunately, from this perspective, I am a pessimist. Peace does not come unless you actively seek it. We are in an age of information overload, which has nothing to do with the pandemic or the war. An era that is defined by an excess of all kinds: extraordinary opportunities, cataclysmic news, endless tasks, multiple projects, urgent and extremely important, deadlines that have already passed, but that you have to respect.

We are in CHAOS right now.

And who doesn’t know how to tidy up the information chaos around us, has no chance. I will want to take in turn several contradictions that we live in real-time, information, statistics, but also some tools — to help you press that reset button if you wish.

Nothing I write below is new, but through repetition, we can now act for the benefit of each of us.

Is life more difficult than in the past?

Every time I wonder if our daily life is objectively difficult, the story of a letter from 150 years ago, from Bucharest, comes to mind. The letter, which was heavily covered by ProTV News a few years ago, was written in the winter of 1875 by a young Englishman named Joseph William Sheldon, who worked at the Romanian Railways.

Young Sheldon wrote to his father about what life was like in Romania, the country’s capital.

“My dear father, I am writing you this letter but I do not know how long it will take them to reach you. All the trains in Romania are stopped in the field due to the snow. In the yard, the snow is 15 feet high. 4.57 meters) and in some places, you can walk on the roof without any problems.

The orchard is covered with snow, and only the tops of the branches can be seen. The Wallachians say they have never seen snow like this before. As all water sources are covered by mud, we melt the snow to drink water for both us and the animals.

The cold is awful — one day it was below 14 degrees Fahrenheit (ed.: -10 degrees Celsius). Authorities have already prepared the boats, as they are waiting for the floods when the thaw comes.

Last week the wolves almost came to our door. Three people were eaten by wolves on the road near the city — two were students at the School of Agriculture (ed.: At that time in the area of ​​the current Pantelimon neighborhood) and were returning from the theater, and the third was a woman who brought milk from -a village. Also, a peasant and his two oxen were eaten by wolves near the tobacco factory (ed.: Current Regie) two days ago.

Two wolves roamed the house last night, but I couldn’t shoot them. “

In other words, only 4–5 generations ago, in the time of your great-grandfather, if you lived in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital — you could come face to face with wolves wandering the streets, in packs. I know it comes to mind: “Come on, there are packs of stray dogs waiting to grab you,” but that’s just a trivialization of the danger of modern life.

My grandparents’ stories, from what they lived 60–80 years ago, do not compare with our current reality. I am not referring to World War II, because you cannot compare a period of (relative) peace with a period of military conflict.

I am referring to the fact that people were working in the summer, thinking of the coming winter. The main goal was to have enough food to spend another winter. As of the early 1900s, 197 babies out of 1,000 died in Romania before they were one-year-old (25% more than in France, for example). This means that 20% of newborns die in the first year.

Human life, in general, has always been difficult, if you look at it from the perspective of survival. This mortality rate still seems low, compared to other times. 2000 years ago, for example, the chance of reaching maturity was below 50% (!).

This constant shadow of death made life quite simple: your goal was to live and help those close to you to survive, too. And, if you think that the 1900s are too far away for us, living in the 2000s, well — in 1960 (your parents’ childhood period, most likely), the mortality of children under 5 was still very high. of 20%. An improvement, in half a century, but this figure hides personal dramas that our people have gone through, trying to give a new life better, to the survivors.

From here to the horror stories in which the lightly crouched woman, on the staff, tells you how she was the only child who survived, out of six siblings — it’s just a step. Lack of food, lack of basic medical services, lack of understanding of diseases that were wreaking havoc back then and now seem trivial to us, widespread violence, at the level of local communities, but also between nations — they made life last only 3 generations would have been almost impossible if we look at it now.

And then, except for war (which should be discussed separately), our last few decades were objectively more difficult. From a subjective point of view, however, things are completely different. We are living in probably the most difficult period in human history, from a mental and emotional perspective.

(except, again, in periods of armed conflict)

Yesterday we were fighting with wolves, which were coming down from the forests on the streets of the capital, in search of prey. Today we are fighting with the notifications that keep gathering, on that device that you keep in your pocket. Vibrating. And it vibrates. And it still vibrates.

Life has become more complex

That is why we perceive that our life is hard. If in the past it was difficult, objectively, today we are surrounded by all kinds of temptations and the fight with them seems lost before. The ability to stay focused on a single task has declined dramatically in the last ten years, with the growing development of smartphone applications.

We have learned to live an increasingly fragmented life. We have access to everything we want, in the short term, to get rid of discomfort, boredom, the inconvenience of a heavier task, the pain of waiting in line, for submitting forms, or, ironically, even the ads we watch on the big screen before we start the movie we went to with our husband or wife.

Dopamine-based short-term feedback loops that have been created using smartphones through the applications we access — fragment our attention, and cannibalize it to the point where we become completely addicted to using it. Social media platforms (but not only) use the same neural circuits used by slot machines and cocaine to make us use their products as much as possible.

Your attention has become the most valuable currency you have today.

The feelings you have now, depending on how often you get your hands on the phone, are similar to those of a drug addict. This is why life, from an emotional and psychological perspective, is more difficult than in the past. The reason you are constantly tired and feel like you don’t have time.

Problems occur when your actions are fragmented due to notifications or an unstoppable desire to see what’s going on “outside.” When you have the impression that it is vital to check your email, no matter what you do during this time, check your Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok account, for news about Covid or war.

When the problems are serious, in fact (?)

Do not imagine that only the phone is the problem you have in life and that if you give it up — everything will look great. The fragmentation of attention has already become a kind of guerrilla warfare, and it is taking place by any means possible.

I remember now approx. 20 years (!), When we were working on a project that I have to submit on PHARE (financing programs), I had a major moment of awareness, one morning. I had opened the computer, but instead of opening the folders with the project, probably still asleep, I first clicked on the browser. Then I unconsciously typed the address of a forum, because at that time they were fashionable, to see what was posted in the meantime by community members.

It was a shock to me because I realized that I did it on autopilot. It was like a response to the discomfort I felt when I thought about the project in front of me. For me, it was proof that the forum had become an addiction, so I cut off access to it.

Today the problem seems benign to me because the ways to be stopped from the outside of what I do, but also to do unconscious acts of sabotage — are much more refined. And the pandemic and the war did not help at all, on the contrary, the first natural reaction, when there is a global crisis, is to be aware of everything that is happening.

In other words, the news about the pandemic and the war is being used to the maximum by the media, seeking to capitalize on the advantage it has in the terrible battle it is waging for your attention with the other “unconventional” news channels (including social media channels).

That’s why I don’t think there will be a “quiet period” shortly. It is much more profitable to have cataclysms and scandals that roll on the internet and keep you in a continuous game of ankles, with a high pulse.

I said in another article that the problems start when the time spent on the phone exceeds 4 hours a day. Immediately after the war in Ukraine, I constantly did a test, every time I met someone I knew: I took his phone and took a look at the settings to see what the average was spent there.

Rarely have I found phones that can be used for less than six hours a day. I found 8–10 hours frequently. This is time gathered, with the screen open. Even I, in the first week of armed conflict, had peaks of over 7 hours of state on news channels, which is huge, from any point of view we would look at the situation.

We are zombies.

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