Well, here I am. It is my obligatory annual overthinking season, and I am in the zone! It is that time of year again where I start questioning what I am even doing in life and thinking about all of those four-plus years ago who said, “You know, you should really have a backup plan after college.”
Am I doing everything I am capable of accomplishing? Am I utilizing my schooling in a way that will be beneficial for me? Am I making the necessary network connections to feel grounded and stable in pursuing what I love the most? Or am I becoming one of those people who get lost in the mundane aspects of life where I am accustomed to the 9 to 5 schedule? Are the smoldering embers of the passion slowly cooling to the point where no oxygen will be enough to stoke the flame?
“Chaz, you’re being dramatic and are over exaggerating.”
Perhaps I am, but even then, those thoughts frequently cross my mind, and I do, more often than not, dwell on them. Lately, they have felt more emphasized than they should be. Mental health has been a huge talking point throughout the last few years and recognizing the urgency of these thoughts, I tried to find the middle ground of happiness with them by taking a step back during quarantine to look more in-depth at myself. With all that time alone, or with family, it would only be a matter of time before we were to unlock some hidden talents, realizations, and possibly some better taste in television shows, right? (It turns out, people still love awful shows, oh well.) That was the glass is the half-full approach to a rather interesting time in our lives, but that approach quickly deteriorated as time went on.
Look, this past year has been a lot for the whole world, and I certainly hope this post does not come off like I’m throwing a “boo-hoo, please pity me!” party, because that is most certainly not my intent—there are others who have had it far worse than I could ever imagine. I will be the first to admit that saying “this past year has been a whole lot” does not even touch the heartache that thousands and millions of people have had to experience in terms of dealing with the loss of loved ones, struggling financially, or being screwed over by the broken system that our country was founded on. It was devastatingly eventful, to say the least; we had to deal with being human while co-existing with one another, but also handle Mother Earth as she stirred up quite the ravage of storms and disease across the globe. It is far too easy to focus on the bad stuff with 20/20 vision (heh, you get it?) and not see the upside of things.
I do believe good things are happening under the surface. Life is everchanging, and to exist, as humans, means we need to be receptive to change because, without development, we do not evolve throughout our lives. To evolve, we need the balance of friction to grow, and to struggle is just that. The flower will not bloom if it does not have sunlight, but before it reaches the sunlight, it must fight through the weight of the soil and breach the surface. It is probably cliché to say that, but there is some truth to be found in the allegory. To try and stop change from happening is to stop the growth of our experience, and what happens when we stop growing as individuals? We become stagnant and stuck. The overall feeling leaves a void that clings to any hope or desire to do anything. That void languishes a sense of our inner self. And as we sit mindlessly staring at our phones or watching the constant news cycle of stories that make us question humanity, or waking up on auto-drive to breathe and work, a sense of our higher purpose feels wasted.
Languish is a new term I came across a couple of weeks ago while I laid on my office floor just staring at the ceiling and intermittently doomsday scrolling through Twitter. Upon reading about it, I almost wrote a whole blog post about my feelings on the subject, and to be honest, I regret not doing it now. It would have certainly made this writing a little easier.
I’ll be honest, I came across the article because I looked up signs of being depressed. I would be lying if I said my mental health did not decline a bit, and I think you are a sociopath if you have been unfazed over the last year or so. My motivation to do anything was worse than it was last year, and I felt meh every single day. And I still do. It is hard for me to get excited about anything and everything. I thought the vaccine news would be great, and in hindsight, it is. It is a stepping stone to something hopefully greater, but it did not mend the uncertainty inside the back of my mind. The number of people who are gung-ho about baseless conspiracies and who have made this pandemic SUPER political have cast some serious doubts about us ever really surviving if—no scratch that, not if—but when another pandemic hits. It is thoughts like those that interrupt my overall process of creating, and the leftover feeling is something similar to that of last year that I experienced before the pandemic even hit.
If you know me or even semi-follow my social media/podcast stuff, you probably know that last year, around this time, I opened up about being “creatively depressed”. I was in a rut that I could not seem to dig myself out. Given what a shit-show 2020 was, it is sufficient to say that I certainly was not alone in feeling the burden of having a lackluster creative inspirational year. That is not to say that I did not envisage new ideas, but it is the moment of having to type words into the keyboard and having them appear on the screen that was the real struggle. My mind would draw a blank, and instead focus on things that were out of my hands, and then any sense of creative direction I had would slowly wither and hide in its shell only for me to find again. With everything else going on in the real world, it made it that much harder to stay focused on what I wanted to write, and all that questioning only seemed logical because all I could think was what a time to be alive. I can only imagine the multitude of spins we will cast to the generations who have yet to be born. What is that saying? That history is written by those who are deemed victorious? Geez, I really hope we do not skew this part of history. But when have we ever been transparent? (Insert long overly dramatic and exhausting sigh)
Here is the truth of the matter: this feeling fucking sucks. It could definitely be worse, and I am grateful that it is not. I am not a psychologist, a doctor, or anything like that, so for me to pinpoint why I’m feeling this way, or why others may feel similar, or why mental health advocacy has been on the rise, is something I should really not even try to approach and suggest because I’m not a paid professional. But, if you were going to ask a wise-ass aspiring writer, filmmaker, podcaster, photographer, semi-serious, semi-not-serious, human such as me, “Why, oh why, are these things ever so on the rise?”, I would maybe suggest that it is because we have grown accustomed to being broken mentally. Now, this is my thought, and the only degree I have is in film, and it is a BFA, so I’m not a doctor, okay? If you want movie recommendations, then hit me up. (I have an okay taste in cinema, for the most part, and I take great pride in that!) Otherwise, take this with a grain of salt.
What I mean by being broken mentally is we are now in the digital age. We have been in the digital age since the 1980s, and it has only “improved” and continued to innovate itself for the 40 years it has existed. 40 years. Let that sink in. We have become so accustomed to technology that we have expectations for new phone releases, new gaming consoles, cameras, computers, televisions, the internet, etc. The list goes on, and on, and on. We have been surrounded by it wherever we go, and it has taken over for us so we can do less. The reason I put improved in quotations is that yes, it most definitely has improved you really do not need to be captain obvious to state that, but with all its improvements, such as making us even more “connected” virtually than ever before, there is a drastic dark side that has gone untreated for far too long. And that dark side, in my non-doctorate opinion, can arguably be the meltdown of politics, the media, worldwide events involving social issues, and the complete lack of transparency as to what we deem is and is not truth. And what makes this scary is how many opportunities certain people have found to exploit these issues and expand on the ideas to a more extensive audience. The Social Dilemma sort of touches on this idea in the sense it showcases the algorithm that these big tech companies have utilized and can almost quite literally predict our very next move. Do you know how New World Order Minority Report crazy that sounds? This exact scenario is literally what authors, and other innovators in the past, have warned us against, AGES AGO. Yet here we are.
We are so consumed by social media on a daily that we lose track of what it means to be ourselves. I am guilty of this. I already admitted to doomsday scrolling Twitter. And I probably will keep falling into this cycle because that is where we are collectively as a conscious. We are embedded in this Matrix whether we like to admit it or not. There is no avoiding the mean machine. They have learned to exploit what really keeps their ratings going. It never has been in the best interest of the general public, or for humanity for that matter. Why do they focus on murder, politics, scandals, etc.? It is all about the ratings. Ratings this, ratings that, ad revenue this, fucking mooooooooneeeeeeeeey!!!!!!! I understand the idea of wanting a great audience appeal, I think any person in the creative field can grasp the core idea. But to stoop to such a level where you have to corrupt another person’s sense of reality just to make money is so ethically messed up. All eyes are on you, Z(f)uckerberg. And even though all eyes are on him, he still sells all of our data to third-party companies, and we are borderline dumb enough to let it slide with a slap on the wrist. So, obviously, there is not a care in the world how much these companies distort reality, just as long as they make the money.
That begs the question: do we even realize it? Do we recognize that these stories are being spoon-fed to us by an algorithm that can predict our next move? That by us clicking “like” on a status, or retweeting a crappy hot take, that it is feeding the machine to mass-produce more content like that? Documentaries have tried to address the issue, as have others in recent months, but they are always brushed off as trying to push a certain agenda – whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean. We seek and love momentary attention, and so when we react to such things, we are spreading the word and giving them recognition. Those cringe-worthy videos of influencers “pranking” their significant other or making hot fudge sundaes in the toilet with fruit punch have made money. That is why they keep producing content like that because we consume it like a swarm of fish devouring whatever lands in front of its face. That is in our generation’s culture.
Not only are people making money for producing crappy content, but social media has also enabled us to believe that our opinions matter more so than they do. And as great as it would be to have our opinions matter that much, the truth is this: they do not, nor will they ever. We have become so used to posting first reactions to how we feel, posting jokes we think are funny at the moment, and shitting on absurd politics; we never think about the consequences to follow, and when we do, it is often too late; I am guilty of all the above. It seems that each year, these companies try and get cleverer with how they can integrate their platforms into our daily lives. But at what cost? They have yet to address their shortcomings and what influence they have on more than just our mental health. Why give them more leeway and entry into our livelihood when we were doing just fine without it decades ago? They profit off tragedy and coercion. Giving them more power will only enable that mindset more so than it is now.
I often say if I were not a creative who chose filmmaking, writing, or even podcasting as their outlets, then I would not have any social media. Unfortunately, it seems like it is a must-have in the fields (or so we are to believe). And because of that, I’m left with this question of, “Well, how do I balance my life while still working on all the gigs?” And to be honest, I don’t know. Not knowing contributes to the overall feeling of being stagnant, and that only feeds into the questioning of everything that I am doing, which then only feeds more into this bullshit platform that you likely saw this blog link on. Here is the thing though, networking is a HUGE thing in the fields, and I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t mention that without social media, I wouldn’t have met a majority of the people I work with now.
Ultimately, I would be lying if I said I did not question my own creative choices and have had second thoughts about opting out of it all together this past year. And it fucking scares me to have to admit that. But then I reflect on all the people I have met, and I smile. Maybe that is the key; only use it to network and to promote, not to consume. That is easier said than done. These platforms are meant to keep us scrolling. It’s meant to produce the hottest trends about social events, to keep feeding bots, and to keep us enraged – I mean engaged. Sorry, I let my tongue slip there.
So how do we balance it all out? I wish I knew a solid answer. In a perfect world, delete them. Delete them all. In time that will hopefully be a viable option. So, I will give a few quick thoughts. Perhaps deleting all the apps off the phone would be a good start. Only log in when you are near a computer or laptop, but only if you have to. It’s so tempting to log on, click on your favorite platform, and stay up to date. Do not give in. It is a Jedi mind trick. If you want to stay connected to people, resort to texting or email, or even calling. Did he just say calling?! THE ANXIETY. I know, God forbid anybody learns how to call somebody to get an answer right away rather than waiting for a text where they probably will not answer for the next day or two. I would even suggest deactivating accounts on platforms that do not serve you a purpose in any way. If you have to resort to, “Well, what if I need it down the road?”, then get it when you cross that path. Getting it out of a what-if will only feed and enable that predatory instinct these companies love.
The doomsday scrolling needs to stop. We all know the world is a fucked-up place. Not giving in to the mass hysterical belief that we need to be connected virtually does not mean you are living in a world of ignorance; it means you are not being peer pressured to be trendy. You can still subscribe to works of journalists, watch the news, or even read the paper. Getting the news from social media is like looking into a dumpster fire and only seeing snippets of the newspaper with misleading headlines because pieces of it burned. The more desensitized we are, the worse our overall feeling of existing will be, and what these platforms have done is emphasize all that. And when they emphasize such events, we read about the useless opinions that add absolutely nothing to the conversation and instead showcases the complete ignorance and privilege others unknowingly boast. Will somebody please tell me how that is us being connected? If anything, there is a huge disconnect, and it oftentimes goes unacknowledged.
Social media is not the only thing adding to feeling isolated and dull. I (semi) apologize for ranting about it for so long. However, for me at least, I know it is one of the main factors. Whenever I start questioning myself and the lack of happiness, my first thought is almost always, “Well, so-and-so seems to be doing just great with all their projects, so why am I not happy?” Well, first off, I should not compare myself to others – that is something entirely different for a different post, but the thing that catches my attention is how I only seem to know that so-and-so is doing grand by way of social media itself. And I only saw that because of my scrolling, and the algorithm decided I needed to see it for whatever reason. In actuality, I did not. Nobody does. At the end of the day… People will have forgotten who even posted their work, etc., come the next few months or years. It is only temporary recognition, and we pay more attention to that rather than focusing on what we feel internally for accomplishing hard work.
What I will say is this:
When we allow ourselves to languish from superficial factors, it oftentimes overshadows the sentiments in our hearts that are there to remind us of our passions, our cherished memories, and what actually makes us human. That is something that this digital age will never be able to recreate, and I do think it is important we do not let it erode our identity or our purpose. It is the moments of being able to tune into our inner voice, the thing that truly resonates with us on a fervent level, that will ultimately be the thing to make us feel connected and not reliant on platforms or technology to carry us through to the end. We are human; let us not forget what that means to be as such, even if it means we must languish and question everything in the process.