Quietness and Humbleness... Are still important?

Where is the Substance?

Why are extroverts spoken of at this time as stronger than those who are naturally reserved? Maybe the screaming YouTube or Tiktok superstars and their big fans have given people the wrong impression, but in the silence, there is an absolute form of strength that few take the time to get to know it.

In our age, all the flashy stuff sells. There is no doubt about it. There are several ways to demonstrate the above statement with great ease. Award ceremonies, for example, have always been glamorous, but over time, it seems that more and more attention is being paid to the outrageous outfits worn by a lot of the nominees.

This has come to distract from even more substantive discussions, such as the quality and contribution of their respective field to those nominated to receive some form of award. n fact, fashion is also an art form. But how much are we letting appearance distract us from the substance of things?

Yes, the clothing that is displayed on catwalks or worn by stars at large events is very striking. But honestly, many of those glitzy outfits would be terribly impractical in real life.

The showing off era

Go to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and check out the most popular photos. You will rarely find boys and girls there with appearances like those of your neighbors or friends. People who generally manage to go viral on these social networks try to show an "aspirational" image towards youth. But do these "influencers" sell to the youngest intellectual aspirations of some kind? The answer is, in most cases, a resounding no.

What they sell are athletic bodies (in many cases obtained thanks to digital retouching), silky hair, perfect smiles and, in general, an appearance of eternal youth.

And in this way, in no subtle way, it ends up associating itself by following the canons of beauty dictated by the companies that run the world of fashion and the media.

Knowing that, no one is surprised by the marked increase in anxiety-related mental illness among members of Generation Z (those born between 1994-2010)

Here, perhaps, it would be appropriate to remind young people that not everything they see in an Instagram post is real, nor does it represent reality. But how to do it in a world where they are bombarded by these images at all hours?

Be yourself

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

― Marilyn Monroe

Visual, Flashy...Relevant?

And the most visual stuff is what generates the most clicks and visits. But not any type of visual content is attractive today. It has to be flashy enough, nimble, and sometimes a bit raucous to catch the eye of a generation that has grown hand-in-hand with video games.

Maybe that's the reason why apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and particularly Tiktok, generate brutal levels of profit and are so popular with young people.

But, puting aside popularity of that kind of sites and apps, it is worth asking. How much of this content is really relevant to society, and does it contribute something for those who consume it? Many would say that entertainment is a quite remarkable contribution to society, but why does it have to be against what exalts the spirit or be something devoid of real substance?

How many of those social media stars will remain relevant in five years?

But not everything is lost

Fortunately, although there are fewer and fewer, there are still spaces in cities to reconnect with the tranquility that once gave light to our existence.

Find a quiet place, and forget about everything for a few minutes. Just breathe. But if for matters of time you can't get far from home, it doesn't matter.

Make a space for yourself in your mind. You deserve to breathe and disconnect for a while from the noise around you.

Although the modern world does not understand it, those little moments of silence reconnect us with our own humanity.