A Day Off

I haven’t had a day off since the early 2000s. I am so tired and weary. Actually, I am disgusted. Not having a break for more than 25 years is maddening. Day in and day out, the same thing, constant aggravation, misery, and being surrounded by angry people take a toll. I feel like I am on the turnpike of no return, and the toll cost is higher than it should be or than I can afford.

Bridging a Gap By Making It Bigger

Social media is a wonder of the modern age. The age of computers and the impending disaster of AI have infiltrated our lives and locked us into the highway to hell, so to speak. Maybe not so much; it is the highway to hell. While it has positives, the costs and negatives seem to far outweigh the positives and overall value.

Never in our history have we seen so much anger and division among people. I am not just speaking of our country, but of the world. What should have been a way to draw people closer and show how small our world is has turned into a factory churning out hate and crime.

Every day, I go on my social media to see something witty or pics from friends and family. I even pop in to check the groups I have joined to see if anything interesting is being posted. But what I am inundated with is hostility, overt sexuality from barely 18-year-old women selling themselves short for superficial attention, if they are even of age, and criminals who consistently scam and rape the bank accounts of lonely men and women, preying on their need for companionship, socialization with other humans, or just admiring people they find attractive or interesting.

Does Anyone Care?

The social media platforms turn a blind eye not only to the crimes committed daily against innocents, but they also do nothing to quell the political bullying and harassment we are all assaulted with every moment of the day.

It used to be that if you wanted to know what was happening in government, politics, or the news, you would tune into a channel of your choice on television and get what you were looking for. It was your choice. No longer. We no longer have a choice. We cannot look for any entertainment on social media without seeing hundreds or thousands of people parading their hostile politics or baiting people into a literal fight online over opposing ideologies.

The Ties That Bind Strangle

Politics, religion, sexuality, nationalism, morality, and life in general are all fodder for individuals seeking an argument, just to fulfill their narcissistic need for aggrandizement of their egos. Everyone wants to be right, and everyone thinks others who don’t believe the same are in need of re-education therapy, via a public social lashing and skewing. In reality, they just want to hear themselves speak and get approval. Narcissism.

People seem to relish when others take up their mantle in a fight and help fan the flames they have set. They need that support to perpetuate their hunger for gang support. Co-dependence.

These are both mental illnesses, by the way, which leads me to think that there must be some component to the rise in mental illness and disturbance in our nation and the world. Shameful.

The Criminal Candy Store

Criminal activity is rampant.

I wrote a five-part feature on internet scams targeting men and women in prior articles, so I won’t get into much of that debacle here, but none of the platforms are doing a thing about it. Period. With the advent of AI, which I am still not sure is a good thing, keeping innocents from predators will be significantly more difficult, if not impossible. I still get women who insist they are speaking to a real celebrity, or men who think this 25-year-old bombshell is going to give her life to them and cannot live without them. It’s far more likely she can’t live without his money, or “help,” as she will inevitably call it.

Other crimes are being committed as well. A new trend is spreading like wildfire in the arts. I am an amateur artist. I have a collaborative that I post monthly with other amateur artists to showcase and expand the reach of their amazing art, and I write and post my commentary on life’s quirks and life experiences.

The newest thing poisoning the waters is NFTs. This, much like the fantasy currency of bitcoins, is another new virtual currency. No one really knows what bitcoin or these NFTs are, and no one has ever actually seen either. Unicorns. Anyhow, predators are now coming into the arts, complimenting artists and hyping them on a potential sale, only to hit them with a demand to purchase art or writing with this NFT nonsense, a digital purchase, they call it. They pop into your messages like normal everyday people, giving you a false sense of security, then turn it into a business transaction that will divest you of your money. I have been warning artists to block these people and not engage with this scam for several months now. So here is everyone’s fair warning.

We Now Return You To: The Days of Our Lives

Back to our scheduled programming. Online fighting. I feel like every time a person logs into social media, the wrestling anthem should blare on your phone or computer. “Let’s get ready to rumble” should be the theme song and motto for ALL social media. Because that is what you will be doing. Duking it out with people you don’t know and will never know, primarily to be heard and to have others hear you, stemming from the need to be embraced and accepted.

It is a typical schoolyard-bully response to humanity. We all need and want to be part of a collective of peers and like-minded people to insulate ourselves from those who oppose our way of thinking. If we behave aggressively enough, we seemingly win the fight and beat our chest. We have now become the head bully. Words like pose, gang, and clicks all come to mind. And that is what it really is, in a simplified nutshell.

But here is the thing. We have moved away from actual human interaction. In real life, in person-to-person interactions, we were unlikely to instigate an argument or a fight. Now, we are all in. Get in, jump into the warm waters, infuriate the opposing factions, and run off to observe your handy work. Congratulations, you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are exactly like everyone else. You have lowered yourselves into the muck with the other bottom feeders. How rewarding.

What We Have Lost

We have lost the grace we used to have in real, lived relationships, both within our circle of friends and family and in relations with others who are not intimately involved. I am seeing generations of kids growing up and adults who have lost their ability to interact socially in person. Tragedy.

It would be an incredible testimony to not just social media, but the human condition, if we could have at least one day a week without this click-baiting, anger-inducing, self-ideological worship. It would say volumes about social media if they could impose a one day of the week hiatus from politics, race, sexuality, religion, nationalism, and idealism. Outright stop any of that from being posted, from people arguing, and from the barrage of criminals trying to take us down the primrose path.

Personally, I think none of that should be on social media. It is far from social. It is, if anything, anti-social. Also, a mental illness.

More importantly,  this kind of change would go a long way toward showing humans that the big corporate behemoth of social platforms cares about more than its bottom line or its stockholders. It would demonstrate, in a real way, that it cares about the consequences of negative content perpetuating hateful discourse and about the people who truly want to enjoy social connection with the rest of the world.

Taut Thin Line

It’s exhausting, so much hate. It’s demoralizing and counterproductive to a happy, mentally healthy life. I know that, in the end, this idea is idealistic.

For one, the media outlets won’t do anything like that; people are drawn to hate and war, which keeps them engaged. We have several small wars and world wars that attest to our thirst for blood.

Second, everyone is entitled to freedom of speech and expression. That freedom should not change. However, discretion and abstaining from provocation should be the rule, not the exception. I believe that wholeheartedly. I would never take away anyone’s freedom of expression or speech, but withholding speech that inspires animosity would show an individual’s maturity.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Really, people, can’t you all give it a rest? Are you so hungry for your neighbor’s blood that you need to be satisfied by eating them alive in a public arena? Do you not have anything better to do with your day than decimate another human’s beliefs, lifestyle, faith or lack of faith, sexuality, choice of coffee, or even the color of their panties, just so you can feel better about yourself?

Maybe you're not trying to convince others of your point of view. Maybe you need to reinforce your own daily by having complete strangers cheer you on during your rant. Insecurity.

It is not possible for us humans to have pleasant banter without getting into a holy war over things that, in the long run, will not add a single day or moment to your life but will waste them.

There are people to enjoy, love, find, keep, and nurture, and a beautiful life full of amazing things that we are sacrificing for imprisonment and adversity.

Go, be good to someone. Go visit a human you know, or can know, in person. Take a break from the hate network and go smell some flowers or something.

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