The human psyche loves a good old addiction, gambling, booze, sex, shopping the list of our habitual traits are often used to define us. Not all addictions are negative, many are imprinted into our survival hard-drive to preserve life but survival traits don’t always walk hand in hand with human optimization. The need for social interaction is a trait shared by the majority of mankind and this addiction almost certainly played a major role in early survival.
Surviving is not the harsh reality it was for past generations but we are still consumed and the popularity of social media would suggest we are addicted. We positively reinforce this addiction with phrases like “she’s popular” and “he gets along with everyone” but all that glitters is not gold. With diminishing downtime and an increasing level of social engagement both in real and virtual time, we are losing understanding of our inner selves.
Our created pseudonym plays many roles in our lives acting as a shield from the stresses of day to day life. The question is are we investing too much time developing our avatar characters and neglecting who we really are inside, deep deep inside where nobody knows your name ??? Is this widening canyon between these two faces of our personalities causing conflict within in us ?? If antidepressant and suicide statistics are anything to go by then maybe the canyon is slowly swallowing us up. Hashtag sad-face.
The avatar and the inner you must coexist with one another but like any shared living space neglecting your relationship with your housemate will end in an unharmonious home life. No one likes cleaning up someone else’s dirty plates to a party at the house you weren’t even invited to. The avatar we put on show for the world has its place but giving it all your love and attention has damaging consequences further down the road. The all singing, dancing, hash-tagging, balls on fire you is a beautiful creation. Enchanting your adoring audience, booby trapping love, protecting the human psyche at all costs from the vultures we dine with but what happens when your audience stops clapping, love is lost and the vultures are still hungry?
Your inner self operates independently and is not fuelled by likes on a social media page, the bag you brought yesterday or the banging boob job you got in Poland. Inner growth needs physical situational life experiences and exponential understanding is gained when you are alone. The mighty wolf pack thrives on the obedience of the hierarchy structure but no individual in the pack will ever become as dangerous as the lone wolf. No member of the pack even the alpha will ever expand beyond their position, as growth is restricted by the reliance of order.
However the lone wolf usually an outcast of a pack stops singing and dancing for the group and becomes a highly trained self-sufficient ninja wolf. The avatar no longer has purpose and life or death is a reality of the inner wolf. Neglect this side of the coin and shit is going to get real, real quick. The reality of losing your “pack” when a relationship crumbles can often break a person. Losing a loved one can become unbearable if you’ve forgotten how to love yourself. Happiness will literally walk out of the door if it is solely attached to a relationship and you hold no happiness within yourself as a person.
“I tell you loneliness is the thing to master. Courage, fear, love and death are only parts of it and can be ruled afterwards. If I make myself master my own loneliness there will only be peace”
marthA GELLHORN
You can often see health and wealth preying on the avatars need for love. We can observe spikes in eating fads that don’t work, group cultures that don’t weather the test of time or the need to hashtag every damn day while you intensively work on disturbing physical balance by trying to look like the Hulk. There are many benefits to pack training or following a structure that has worked for someone else but complementing this with some individuality will help growth and add transparency to agendas. The group ethos like the wolf pack is often rigid and will not allow for energy beyond its boundaries, therefore containing your potential within its measurable limits. Running solo or with a group are two amazingly different experiences. A group share energy dynamically as competition, teamwork and egos intermingle between members but can come at the cost self-focus. Heightened thought, breath, rhythm and determination lit by will all broaden deeper in social silence.
This is not a case of cancelling your gym membership, selling up shop and building a little house on the prairie but a need to discover who your subconscious is. Step out of the box, disconnect societies headphones and take some time to walk alone with wondering thoughts and opinions without the hashtags to create a little self-sovereignty. Find your own two feet, take a step, take a breath, realise your breath is wrong, change breath, take a better step, feet feel strong, now I can write a song as I step in-between better breathes righting my own wrongs. If you follow in the footsteps of the person in front of you, you’ll never find out how far you can go.
#bethemovement
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