Resisting Click-Bait Culture

Ironically, I am hoping that people click on this article which makes me sound pretty hypocritical right off the bat. Now that I have your attention, I hope to take you on a journey through the maze of attention-grabbing links, ads, fake news, real fake news and false promises. The end result will be the liberation of your mind and heart.

The internet today is simply a reflection of the human mind, in its present state. Lots of stray thoughts floating around, linking seemingly unrelated topics to one another. Temptations, hopes, dreams, and desires flood our collective (un)consciousness and so we see them externalized online.

Time to cut through the BS. What are we really looking for online anyway? If you've stumbled onto this page, I will point you back to yourself and the riches of wisdom in your heart that no article or video can offer, including this one. That is because we are caught up in vast quantities of information that cover a lot of breadth, but do not necessarily have a lot of depth.

Another way of saying this is we are drowning in knowledge, but starving for wisdom. Knowledge is of the mind, while wisdom is of the heart. Reading content that is derived from the wisdom of a person's true creativity begins to deepen the experience of the reader; it promotes self-reflection and discernment. Rather than saying "here's what to think," it asks "what do you think, how do you feel?"

When we experience content that is purely about thinking and not about feeling, we can intuitively realize that there is something missing. What usually happens is we seek more information, more points of view on a topic, as well as generating our own opinions and reactions. This is the addiction to information itself; everything we absorb creates the desire for more, since nothing is fulfilling or conclusive in itself.

Writing from the heart creates a sense of rest and completion throughout the piece (peace). It is whole unto itself, and in turn, points to the wholeness of the reader. It does not demand that you keep reading and try to hook you into believing or disbelieving anything. Truly, it is one soul reaching out to another, through the written word. It can feel more like poetry, since there is no desperation to convey any nugget of "truth" in particular. Poetry is right-brain writing, while click-bait is primarily left-brain. In an ideal world, everything would be heart-brain. Recognizing that there is no truth that is outside the reader, it points from one heart to another in as many ways as it needs to.

Click-bait culture basically says "look at me, love me!" This article is encouraging you to look at and love yourself. Our attention is a precious resource, and yet we can find ourselves at times outsourcing it to mindless rhetoric that has no integrity or substance to it. Our creative spirit can get lost in regurgitated opinions, beliefs, and judgments and we find ourselves in a quagmire. Instead of logging off, we watch helplessly as our finger keeps scrolling the mouse wheel, like flipping TV channels instead of simply pressing the "off" button.

I want to make a suggestion that after reading this you take 5 minutes to sit with yourself and just breathe. I've worked with people as a counselor and meditation teacher. Taking time to give ourselves undivided attention can be a great way to begin healing and unlocking true creativity, and unplugging from the bait that seeks our precious clicks.

Since we only have a limited number of clicks in a lifetime, I suggest we begin to use them wisely. Finding quality content that can inspire us to make positive life changes is a rare thing these days. Mostly everything is competing for your time, money, energy, and attention and doesn't really give you anything back. I want to reward your investment in reading my words and hope that you feel better and more empowered than before.

I thank you for your time and I offer you my website as a final click-bait temptation. I am providing free introductory counseling sessions for anyone interested in exploring further.

www.seedsoflove.ca