Touching grass
This is an entry from my journal. I comment on how the Internet can have a negative effect on one’s outlook when not used in moderation.
The other day I was reading through my RSS feeds to catch up on the news. I noticed an article with a title along the lines of “I want to be allowed to hate on fatherhood” (me paraphrasing). The author was a man about to tell us how much suffering is involved in being a father. I thought to myself that this is yet another one of those common performative gimmicks of the attention economy: the influencer must be ever-more outrageous and controversial in order to outcompete other influencers in the race for clicks.
Even though I knew that the content would not amuse me, I followed the link. Yes, I am stupid. As I read through the first couple of paragraphs, I realised that it was getting even more preposterous than I had expected, with mothers who are hating on motherhood and the like. So I stopped reading, unsubscribed from that feed, and went out for a walk a bit earlier than planned.
Judging by what we get online, modern medicine is out of sync with the times. Before delving into the specifics of one’s health, the doctor should ask “when was the little time you touched grass?” and should then prescribe a couple of months of daily exposure to natural scenes combined with a strict diet of no computer time past work. Sure, this is tongue-in-cheek, though I do believe we are losing touch with the basics. Once the meme becomes reality, new memes tend to be even more egregious.
Walking connects me to my immediate reality. The pace of my hike is relatively slow, as is the rate of change in my environment. Life here is uneventful, in the sense that there is nothing “grand” happening on the people front. Seasons come and go. With them I get the small joys of each day, such as to notice slightly different colouration in the river across my house, or to be exposed to the scent of a certain flower. These are the kind of mildly uplifting feelings that will not work for clickbait purposes, but will instil in you a sense of peace.
As I walk, a buffer is formed between my thoughts and my potential actions. If, for example, I get the idea to write a flagrant one-liner, I cannot do it impulsively. Instead, I have to slowly cover the distance back home, while breathing fresh air and continuing to think things through, and only then do the deed. By that time, the urge to commit mayhem is gone. Same principle for long-form writing or talking at length and in depth: it keeps you in check.
Think of how frequently people post something invidious and delete it afterwards: it is because there is no intermediate space between their incomplete thoughts and their capacity to broadcast byte-sized venom in an instant.
In my surroundings, there is no controversy and strong feelings. Things are calm. Here no form of life tries to be as hyperbolic as possible. Nature is subtle even in its most awesome moments. I have learnt from it to be simple in my ways. To appreciate the few things that are available to me and to not complain for what is not mine.
The person who does not touch grass and is always online is conditioned to constantly seek fuel for strong emotions, be they pleasure, hatred, indignation, disgust, or pity. They need to be compelled thus, for that is all their digital environment has ever supplied them with. All emotional stimuli are readily available in unlimited quantity.
As a side-effect of such conditioning, the person develops a sense of entitlement, but also an expectation for constant intense stimulation: they think the world owes them happiness, comfort, or whatnot. Consequently, this is a milieu that is dominated by the increasingly gory and obscene. It is all shouting at you, upping the pressure on your conscience.
The digital world has a speed that is faster than what we can sustainably live with. If you follow the news cycle for a while, you already feel that the world is on the brink of collapse. Tune in to any talk show to find people screaming at each other, no matter the topic. After sufficient exposure, you are one degree away from either exploding in frustration or imploding in depression. When subtlety is lost, so is stability.
We underestimate the latent toxicity of information and of the thoughts it can engender. We know that we should be careful about what we eat, drink, and breath, but we forget that what we think also contributes to our wellness or lack thereof. The information we are exposed to creates a certain climate that skews our perception accordingly. The question, then, is whether this is a viable environment for us.
Touching grass is not necessarily comfortable. It requires some effort and does not provide instant gratification on demand. We have to earn it through patience and perseverance. Nature is not the omniscient, benevolent figure that tends to our well-being and conspires in our favour. That is the figment of our wishful thinking. What we get in the great outdoors is indifferent to us. Nature does not make promises and no-one is entitled to anything. The more you are out there instead of being in your head, the more you realise that you are not at the centre of the world.
I am here as a passenger. Later I could miss a step, fall, break my neck, and die on the spot. That almost happened to me a few winters ago when I stepped on ice and went sliding downhill at 5 in the morning, with nobody around. This world does not revolve around me: it will carry on the way it always does. It does not idolise me. I am not its epicentre. I am yet another life form the same way rats and trees are.
This is not me devaluing myself, rationalising my lack of self-esteem, or whatnot. Even the most conventionally successful or popular person is subject to the same forces. Whatever importance we think we have, nature reminds us that it is not much. So I am a philosopher, among others. One may think this is a major achievement. In the sense of putting in the work, indeed it is not something that comes about easily. Though being a philosopher is no different than being a non-philosopher, if we abstract away the details: we all are people who will get the same treatment by the cosmos, namely, ageing and death, typically combined with a hard lesson in humility.
The “has been” kind of celebrity wants to cling on to their past glory, such as by claiming that “in my time I was swaying public opinion and moving the crowds”. Well, now you are reaching your end and nobody cares who you used to be.
Such is the bigger picture. I am humble because I understand that (i) I have no ownership over anything that is nominally “me”, such as my intelligence or looks, and (ii) however good I am, there are magnitudes that are far more potent than me. No matter how strong my volition is, it is not able to halt that which is inexorable, nor to alter that which is immutable.
Coming back to that article, I could comment on the substantive point, but it would be a futile effort. The reason is that the incentives for extremism are systemic. Once this fad of the parent who hates parenthood runs its course, it will be superseded by a yet more extremist position, such as the parent who cultivates and then sells their offspring for profit, and so on. I cannot even come up with realistic scenaria anymore, as the real outcomes will probably be far worse than what I can imagine, if the memes are allowed to run amok.
The reason I unsubscribed from that feed is because I do not want my mental state to be governed by phenomena that are not pertinent to my being and to be distorted by methods that prey on my feelings. Why did I subscribe to begin with? Because I thought there was some decent journalism there, which has been on a steady decline for several months due to the innate logic of the attention economy: exaggerations are better for viewership.
Clickbait is the intended transmission mechanism. The whole routine of “comment, like, subscribe, and hit the bell button” is the ritual sacrifice we make to the altars of profitability. Deep down we know we are being disrespected by such manipulation tactics, yet the system is set up to reward those who exploit them the most.
The Internet distorts spacetime by making everything appear proximate and imminent. It is not. As soon as I switch off the computer, I am presented with a world whose rhythms match mine. I quit social media a long time ago for the same reason. Idem for not turning my phone into a “productivity” tool: I do not want to be constantly connected to an information network that is withdrawn from my actuality.
The sun is about to rise. I am ready for another day. I know that I am not special in this place. I will not be rewarded with everything my heart desires. And I do not matter in the end. Such is tranquillity.