See I've Been Through the Internet with a Blog with No Name
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
“There’s nothing original, only distinct ways to tell the universal.” - Me
A narcissistic open, I know. But honestly, so many of these blogs have felt like meanderings I’m never quite sure have a point or two. If anything, their problem is too many points.
I suppose the key reason I’m proud of this thought of mine, of which I’m sure has been mused about if with different semantics, is that it speaks to the moment we are in now with the hyper individualized internet everything-everywhere-all-at-once phenomenon.
Yes, I’m alluding to that wild movie that surprisingly won Best Picture. No, I didn’t really follow the plot along that well nor did I think it was a perfect movie. Nevertheless, I can’t help but believe it spoke to something so profoundly accurate to our particular moment.
There’s too much. Too much fun, too much depression, too much politics, too much screens, too much opinions.
Anything I’ll say you’ve probably heard somewhere else. Any dramatic effort to prove my writing voice is so damn different probably just will remind you of writers who also seek overly so to be so damn different.
More and more I’m thinking I want to say something old rather than new. Said another way, maybe the best kind of new is a refreshing and uplifting redux on something timeless, classic, and always true.
What’s true isn’t mine; what I can say about truth is the truth I see in you that I also see in me.
In the Enneagram, that other Gospel which might in fact send me to Hell for how much time I’ve spent studying it rather than the Living Word of God, I’m the social subtype. There’s three of em, these subtypes; self-preservation, social, and one-to-one (or sexual).
It’s all just coding to make sense of consciousness. Basically it’s just grasping wind but sometimes I catch a breeze.
The social subtype emphasizes the herd instinct, or the focus of attention on getting needs met through what the tribe can provide. The self-preservation locus of attention is the gravitation toward doing what you need to survive mostly yourself (not necessarily FOR yourself per se) whereas the one-to-one is the belief that in a special other, whether romantic, BFF, or otherwise, your attention should go to that special other to supply for your survival. Way more to dive into here; that’ll be for another blog.
Nevertheless, I’m the social subtype.
Yet I’m a 4 on the Enneagram. The individualistic romantic… who is looking to the herd.
No wonder I’m a brilliant mess at the best of times and a beautiful train wreck at the worst.
Nevertheless, I care about the whole.
I see the outsider and their needs, empathizing reasonably well because I’ve often felt myself an outsider.
Let’s come back to the main point here; I think we are too individually focused.
There I said it; that’s the blog. That’s the gist.
Second point; it’s the internet’s fault. If anything, the internet just made everybody really lean into the type 4 energy inside of them instead of the type 6, 9, 3, etc etc that seeks to conform to the whole. To clarify, I’m not saying this individualism made more people gay or trans or anything of that sort. Missing the premise.
Also, I’m not saying that this individualism the internet hyper charged is ALL bad. No way Jose. The internet revolutionized essentially everything, including people’s access to goods, services, knowledge, etc etc. That’s a win-win-win for humanity.
But even still, this very thing that the internet did, giving us everything that we need, anywhere we go, and often solving multiple of our problems simultaneously, is the essential premise of the Oscar winner for Best Picture.
It’s too much, this brand of individualism we have now. We know too much. Nah, I’ll say it better; we THINK we know so much but really we know too much yet understand far too little.
With this individualism and it’s surprising paralleling ideological cousin of political tribalism, we think we are special, we think they are the problem, and we think we are right. We think they can’t understand so we act in ways where their responses to us prove our assertion that they don’t understand.
It’s the donut in the movie.
It’s the price of my being a special me, you being a villainous you, my friends being the special ones who understand, and the general chaos of deepening globalization, a pluralistic society, and staunchly fierce echo chambers all jumbled together.
It’s just too damn much
Life was simpler back in the day. Also a lot less individualistic.
In ancient times, nobody gave a flying f&%@ what your personality was, your sexual identity, your stance on pro sword/anti sword issues, etc.
You thought about surviving. You prayed to your gods, defended your people, sometimes conquered other people, married who the village told you to marry, and never, ever stopped tending to the crops or livestock to get in one more session of Call of Duty.
Your call of duty was to the people you grew up with.
Good, bad, indifferent, one thing that’s lost since those old ass times was the responsibility to be my brother’s keeper. The internet really made us more selfish. Can I just say that without qualifying it?
I know it’s true for me. I’m not a better husband when I’m on my phone indefinitely, not a better son when I login to another Overwatch match, not a better brother or therapist or churchgoer when I even post this blog.
I don’t say the above to guilt you or me. It’s just true.
Simply put, I just want to care more about others and less about myself. Or as C.S. Lewis would say, I don’t want to think less of myself but rather to think about myself less.
Unfortunately, the internet tends to make us think more about ourselves.
Take that as you will.
Thus ends the blog with no name.