Month: November 2026

What’s so bad and dangerous about the internet and social media

and screen-mediated ‘reality’

is that we

(all of us who use smartphones and social media and watch TV, etc.,

so a fair number I suppose)

can’t help

but believe in

the representations

of other people and the world

that these productions and performances show…

It’s only our minds

(or mostly our minds)

and not anything we see and live

in the flesh,

in face-to-face

heart-fluttering

soul-vulnerable reality,

with people we see and whose presence we feel,

where there are real stakes

and life is really lived,

but actors playing pre-arranged market-determined roles

generally made up to conform to some consumer-set

(probably to be ‘written’

or programmed

more and more

by artificial-Intelligence

(and not the human kind

of intelligence,

that,

at best,

has a heart that’s lived

and worked and hoped and suffered

behind it;

not the eternally old and new

intelligence of humanity…

but I suppose it’s pretty difficult anyway…

and financially less viable, alas!) —

flattering and playing to ready-made biases and prejudices

unable to be seriously challenged or questioned

(tho’ inevitably and predictably praised

for weakly and superficially doing such things),

because made to sell

and make a profit

and what sells but sex

(the easy and convient and agreeable and effortless and going of itself…).

But…

Life is bleak and lifeless

when not lived

by choice

and real effort,

but pre-determined

by an exploiting

and profit-seeking

algorithm

that goes

not by our highest instincts

(love, courage, fidelity, effort,

trust and persistence and faith

over time,

in what lasts)

but our lowest

(fear, pride, hate, resentment, cruelty,

superficiality, shallowness,

us versus them,

eye for an eye,

if you can’t beat them cheat them worldview),

lust for superficial success

(model career, model partner, model apartment/house,

model family, model body,

model products,

model life,

etc. etc.)…

The only way out is

alone,

personal,

and not easy

but difficult,

and against our instinct

for easy pleasure

and the flattering

and the effortless.

But when I say this

I cringe

and hesitate a little

because the path I seek

is not austere

or stupid-serious

but beautiful

and full

and infinitely valuable

(because my own,

because free,

because already in me).

But I lose myself here already a little,

and am getting too vague.

I know what I mean though.

I am as susceptible as anyone else,

and can’t pretend (and don’t want to or mean to)

to being unaffected by

or not very often tempted by

or innocent

of indulgence

and real fun

(albeit like cake

or candy,

tending to induce

indigestion

and bad thoughts

and feelings

after)

in the rot and slop

of the internet.

Anyway.

Keep on!

[We only learn

in getting punched

or hit;

(metaphorically, mind you:

in effort,

in resistance,

in determination

and persistance

through pain and discomfort,

be it only

in the private space

our heads and bodies and thoughts and feelings,

etc.)]

*

A case to be made

that resentment

or aversion

for other people

always backfires

and rebounds on you,

the resenter,

(it’s a law,

the law of compensation:

we get what we give,

we reap what we sow)

& ensnares you

in the trap

(think of political partisans

or fanatics

for any cause

or idea

of any time, anywhere)

of resembling what you resent (or hate),

(if you deny

the humanity

of others,

(and our birthright

to being flawed, and silly, and complex, and full of contradictions)

you forfeit

your own

— perhaps because

we tend to resent

what causes us fear

or discomfort,

what we don’t understand,

but inevitably we tell ourselves

or convince ourselves

(poor humans that we are)

that it’s not us,

but the other,

(& not that

we just don’t understand,

and this not understanding

is neither

good

nor bad,

but neutral,

people and the world

are just infinitely complex

and nuanced,

always changing

and evolving

and full

of contradictions,

like us)

unable to realize

and accept the fact

that we’re just scared or insecure

(our beating hearts and shaking hands

are thinking and deciding

and believing

for us),

a scapegoat

or target

for our pain and suffering,

the pain we feel in our body,

needed, necessary,

a mechanical reflex

in all of us,

and this plays out

every day everywhere

in every body.

(Important

to realize

the role

the body plays,

or the fear and pain we feel

in our bodies,

in mechanically shaping

our beliefs and prejudices

about the world

and other people;

our minds

(in a calm body,

in tandem with our hearts)

could not agree

or come up with

the insanities

and cruelties

we find

on social media

or TV,

or in those who live and feel by them;

and I should add

(I need to add)

in ourselves,

whoever we are,

when we’re scared

or surprised

or hurting,

and,

in spite of ourselves

and our hearts

and what we really know,

blaming

and hating

and fearing others,

who are,

at bottom,

and behind the social masks

and costumes

and conventions

and convenient gimmicks

we come up with

and inevitably believe in

(poor saps that we all are)

truly

really

no different from ourselves).

*

Knowledge

(or ‘information’:

what we read

or study

or look up, etc.)

doesn’t become

understanding

without effort

and persistance

in this effort

over time:

it’s never just a matter

of looking something up

or just reading a book

(or a Wikipedia article,

or an AI response):

knowing something

is not understanding something.

You can know practically everything

but understand essentially nothing

(a very strong feeling for most of us today, I’d say).

You can know the manual

for the exercise equipment

or all the notes and theory

for a song,

but be absolutely useless

when it comes to

using this knowledge,

putting it into practice,

speaking from

or living from

this knowledge,

its only being

theoretical in you,

not flesh and bone,

muscle,

lived…

You use what you know

or you don’t;

you understand what you say

or don’t

(and it’s always obvious

for us

when we don’t).

Someone who understands

has tried and failed

repeatedly,

has taken the (necessary) pains,

given

and paid for

(at least

as much as they could;

we never completely understand anything).

and consistently,

faithfully,

determined not to simply know

but truly understand.

*

A bit overdone, perhaps, this post,

I get like that sometimes,

and I beg your pardon,

I wish it was prettier,

less crude,

etc.

But

c’est comme ça,

at least for now,

it’s how it came out this morning,

perhaps some day

I’ll have words

more elegant, refined, etc.