Big question:
Has there ever been a more starved and afraid time/generation/species/#moment than this? I don't know. I've only been alive for three and a half decades and that's a blip in the lifespan of the whole universe, which makes my question a moot point before I get started. I am of that little consequence to the history of space and general fucking time, BUT nevertheless I am sadly plagued with an overactive curious mind and a mouth that won't shut up even when it would save me some trouble, and I cannot be the only person feeling this worried. I know I'm not. This is the meat-and-potatoes of most of the discussions I have had most of the time for the past month or two. This idea that we’re lost, deprived and very scared about how to get home.
We all want to have certain freedoms. We all want to be connected to people who matter to us. And we all want – and thrive – when we feel some type of reciprocity with our fellow humans. But what kinds of circumstances are we currently existing in that truly allow for these basic needs to be met?
We seem to be proactively encouraged towards isolation, disconnection and fear. You don't share your problems with close companions any more. That's not OK. That's “emotional dumping”. That's burdensome on the people who love you. And instead you have an appointment at 2pm on a Tuesday with a therapist and that's the objective third party you seek advice from during a set 50 minute session because that's the “safe space” in which to be honest about you. But is my therapist sitting on my shoulder 24/7 making sure I'm making “informed decisions” and doing all the “right” things at all times in my day? No. My therapist is off therapising (because that’s a word now) a bunch of other people who bought this idea that it’s better to save your bullshit for someone who is paid to listen. Listen, I like my therapist. But a therapist is no replacement for intimate exchanges with the people in your actual self-made life. The therapist is motivated to keep you sitting on their couch, whining about everyone you’ve ever met. That keeps your therapist in your life! What “serves” them maybe doesn’t “serve” you? I came from an old-fashioned family who believed that nothing in the home leaves the home, and while I think that's kind of extreme, I also think – WOW how novel! Could you even imagine just keeping everything under the one roof? Sounds… secure?
But I don't just blame therapists. What about the thing we all hold in our hands every day. The thing we worship. The new religion. God. Yes, the iPhone. So riddle me this: what version of iMessage is helping us connect to one another? Actually how are our iPhones enabling us to be more effective in our outreach. I remember having a house phone. I remember wrapping myself up and around the cord and spending hours on calls with friends across the country, putting the time in. Standing up wrapped in plastic cord for an hour, with other house members hovering in and out of the room, pressurising me off the phone, me making a stand while simultaneously keeping the other person on the line with my endless wit (or something). Point is: that was commitment. My legs were tired. My voice was hoarse. I learned how to make an effort while standing in one place, not doing anything else at the same time. Now we are lucky to be blessed with a few white words on a blue bubble, if anything, and probably not when we need to see them the most.
I mean, god forbid you call a person now on the phone. You think you can just call whenever? You think you can just remind someone that you exist without the soft launch of a warning text message or an iCal invitation first? What kind of sick fuck are you? I turned on my “read receipts” recently, because everyone else was doing it. Why did they make this a thing? This was created so that we can just avoid messaging back. You’re either “delivered” and someone will get to you perhaps never, or you’re left on “read” ie, not now, maybe later. But it's fine because you have a therapist to help you work through this, remember? Cue Therapist: “It’s triggering issues of abandonment and erasure… Can I offer a hug?!” Uhm, dunno, but does that cost extra?
All of this can be damaging. But we don't talk about it. Instead we post on Instagram all day, showing off about our fabulous lives, and then when we have panic attacks and cry in cars, and in the shower, and on the phone to our one friend who actually dares to call, and may we all have one of those friends. The truth is that this is what I’m receiving from most people I speak to right now: “ I WANT TO DIE!”
I have heard or read that on a text thread multiple times even just this past week. It sounds hysterical. Is everyone holding this level of hysteria at bay every second of the day that all it takes is the kindness of someone asking “how are you?” to gauge this reaction? I fully admit, I too feel a pang of emotional starvation. I’d say it’s more of a rumble than a lite anorexic episode, but I can hear it. This connection homicide is not self-inflicted. It's not like we requested a death from the things and the people that matter. But we can't seem to reach each other for love nor money. We’re on a different satellite, wondering what the rules are today, because everything is “an adjustment” and everyone is “in transition”. Is anyone home? Hello? Did everyone lose charge?
I guess it's easy to blame digital. Or to blame the mental health carers who decided to make a lot of money out of convincing us to break down all of our human connections so that we could have relationships with a paid person instead. But I also think we can blame ourselves for being so stupid and so afraid at the hands of things that we don't understand and cannot control. The pandemic did a number on us. We all spent too much time in our minds on the couch alone, sobbing without toilet paper, and we became obsessed with our identities, and our tribes, and we really came out of that experience screaming at each other about WHO I AM AND WHY THAT INFORMS EVERYTHING I DO AND SAY. It separated us, fundamentally. We were more interested in what made us different (sorry, individual?) than what made us the same. Everyone and everything became adversary and disposable, and we wanted to be less and less accountable for ourselves in past exchanges that we now wanted to erase and nullify, and pretend never existed because it did not fit with the new politic of identity crisis. NOTE: Not identity. Identity crisis. Everyone was figuring out what identity they could adopt to be “in” on anything, such was their fear that their personality and “lived experience” was not enough. With all of us newly or renewly identified, it was time to go to war with the corresponding side.
But someone else on Twitter already said that better than me. I read a tweet this week in relation to the Jonah Hill thing. I wish this person hadn't said it in relation to the Jonah Hill thing, because that part I disagreed with. But I'm an adult who was born in 1986 and can manage information from sources that I can sometimes have an alternative opinion to, so here is what that person said:
We live in a time that is completely devoid of a cultural identity. There is no art, music, or film that rises to a level where it can unify us or spark any sort of cultural dialogue. So we look towards public shaming for entertainment. It’s a deeper tragedy than anyone realizes. Politics has replaced religion. Content has replaced culture. Cheap sex has replaced love. Public stonings have replaced entertainment. And government has replaced God.
That is all completely accurate. We are vampires eating each other alive for sport. We can't even sit at a table with people who have different views from us, and not experience “triggers”. Why does every conversation have to be about everyone’s personal baggage? Is everyone moonlighting as an amateur narcissist? That’s why Israel is such a great litmus test. The Israel/Palestine conflict is a singular instance in human history. But it is one that everyone lassos their own emotional history onto. People weaponise their identity all the time to blackball other people from telling their own stories. It’s dictation. Are you making notes? And by the way, the stronger, the more rooted, the more consistently and defined you are in your own identity, the more people will feel threatened by you. And if you’re the type of person who doesn’t care about fitting in, well good luck because you’re that much worse.
And the biggest arena for this sport, of course, is Twitter. The noise on that thing. Where do we all get off on throwing out several missives every hour about every issue currently being prioritized by the powers-that-be to terrify us further into oblivion? Do we think we're the number one authority on it, the person everyone MUST hear from, or else they will not make it past Go and collect $200? No shade, I have been that person. It did not help me make meaningful connections. It did not improve my relationship with myself. But I get it. You don't have anyone to talk to enough, and your therapist is only available once a week for 50 minutes so what is a girl to do?? There's this thing that you can talk on all day, and people will interact with you, and throw you the crumb of a little “Like” – or a “Retweet” if you're really special – and those tiny morsels of digital 0s and 1s will sustain your existence for the 45 minutes until you decide to get another hit and tweet again. And heavens no! Do you have to actually sit in your own thoughts alone for longer than the time it takes to come up with however many characters it is that forms a post on that website? Can we just be in our own thoughts for two minutes? Does everything we do have to form content? We're so obsessed with our digital footprint we forgot to look at where we're going in our own real life. Eat your breakfast and forget about making it “look good for the gram”. Read a book. What a holiday for your mind that could be. I took four months offline this year, and read more books than I've ever read in my life. It was the best dissociation exercise ever. Nothing else existed. Take me back.
Sometimes I'll sit at a dinner table and find myself in a familiar position listening about the impact that digital outrage has had upon honest, decent people who were just trying to share their work or their thoughts. Some people I've met have been driven off university campuses, sometimes violently, and I've listened to this theory that Gen Z students suffer more chronically from any previous generation from anxiety disorders, and are more prone to the “threat” of discourse that is “harmful” to them. Gen Z have perhaps the lowest tolerance for connection.
And while I empathize with the positions of the speakers who have been cancelled, I also don't think it's as insane as it sounds on the face of it. Sure, it's lunacy that our institutions no longer protect everyone fairly; that universities have become dangerous places for the people we (the collective) have decided don't deserve protecting because the ideas are bad. It's a madness. But it makes sense because the people who are afraid of the speakers, they don't have anything to make them less afraid. They're so lonely and so confused and so preoccupied with therapy and/or what is going on with them/their life/their phone, that when someone gives them cause to engage, they will go full throttle, emotionally high on the experience of feeling seen, heard, validated, valued, connected to anything. They're having to pay for therapists to tell them why they're failing upwards, while their life is constantly enslaved to the ever-shifting sands of safety and unsafety, attachment theories and “processing”. They are made to feel shame for relying on the people they rely on. They're hurt. They want a target. Give them a paint bomb, and they will throw it.
Anyway, what's everyone having for supper? Shall we post about it online?
I agree with Kmick regarding personal baggage; I’m also in my 6th decade (Eve, did you know you had so many older readers?!) and am still mystified by the fragility of mind that drives so many people apart, and away. But I find that when I talk to strangers, most everybody is just trying to get along, trying to make their way in the world (it may be interesting to note that I live in a fairly politically conservative area). And I do see a lot more young people (I teach at a college) very intentionally separating themselves from social media, and cultivating friendships where it’s a point of honor not to touch your phone all day. We may still become more divided, but there will definitely be large groups of people who are finding a renewed commitment to meaningful relationships and robust conversation (even in disagreement).
That was a great read. "We can't even sit at a table with people who have different views from us, and not experience “triggers”. Why does every conversation have to be about everyone’s personal baggage?" I've been alive for 6 decades and we are in a tough time. People are fragmented as relationships are strained or dissolved, including family, friendships and even employee/employer. The lack of stability is hurting us as we are in a constant state of stress. Now we have the stress of the nasty political discourse. I believe we have nowhere to go but up. I hope.