I wrote my last post about feeding negativity after a week of doing just that. I had managed to wiggle myself into this weird mindset and this entirely weird situation where I managed to do all of the things I mentioned in my post that feed negativity. I sat on Instagram and stalked fitness gurus and pretty girls, I managed to convince myself my friends would be happier and better off without me, I stayed home and ate bad food and generally distanced myself from all the people I really love. My mum didn't really know what to do because even though she and I were both kind of aware of the weird mood that seemed to have descended over this little brain of mine, but I couldn't even put my finger on why I felt so unbelievably down all week.
Now to be honest there was a reason for my negativity, I had a conversation with my best friend that ended on a weird tone and for a while after we had talked and seen each other but it really hadn't felt the same. It's very difficult to explain this in a way that makes actual sense when put together in words. We had hung out with our group of friends and laughed and messaged each other about little things but we just hadn't had a conversation that had any substance to it? Eventually yesterday evening both of us had come out with the fact we'd felt weird and out of sync and generally really down and upset without really knowing how to, or whether we should address the situation. It was like a physical weight had been lifted off my chest, I hadn't realised it had been crushing me until my friend pointed it out. It sounds insane, you would think you should be able to identify something that causes you such unhappiness and cultivates so much negativity, but it just didn't happen for me this time.
Long story short, we just didn't communicate with each other because we felt silly about how we felt, maybe even a little irrational. I for sure felt like I was just being neurotic about the whole situation, having decided in my own mind no one wanted or needed me for anything and I should move to Canada and live in a shack with no internet connection because my online presence would be unmissed and everyone would have a great time without me and the world was ending and the general dramatic insane crap that runs through my head when I completely fall to my anxieties. Talking it through and voicing our issues and insecurities meant we could deal with them and talk to each other and work things out. We both felt so so much better after we looked at the weirdness that had been surrounding us for too long and it's like the whole bizarre atmosphere was just lifted off us- we had safely escaped our weird emotional rut.
I wanted to write this post with this little anecdote about my life for 2 reasons. Firstly I wanted my little bog to be real, for me and for the tiny group of people who seem to read it (I appreciate every single one of you, I'm looking at you too Mamma). I wanted this blog to be something that I can use to have a positive voice even if it's a really small scale thing, but I feel like my voice could be miscontrued as fake, or as preachy, which was something I could absolutely not stand when I was at my worst. What I mean by that is I don't feel like I will write a realistic view on life if I don't address in some way that sometimes things get hard. That we aren't super strong and we're not always mindful and sometimes our own thoughts overwhelm us massively. I guess what I wanted to present was the fact I am in no way perfect, I am not mindful everyday, I still have some days that are really a struggle when it comes to anxiety and negativity. I guess what I'm trying to say is I want to share the fact that we all fall off, you haven't failed because you didn't do so great this morning, or this week. You can fall off that's not failing, giving up and laying on the ground and letting negativity hit you could be failing, so just get up and dust yourself off, grab a metaphorical band aid (little bar of chocolate, a couple of episodes of The Office, maybe cry a little bit to someone you love, or maybe just a little to yourself) and pull it back together so you can proceed with living rather than existing.
The second reason I wanted to write this post is because I wanted to talk about interaction and how the current state of society affects the ways in which we interact- the world we live in now, built on technology and the notion of "social networks", allowing us to be interconnected in ways our parents generation can barely begin to comprehend, is a new world. I wanted to talk about how we are all so connected in so many ways, and yet people are feeling, more than ever before, alone. We can feel so disconnected from each other and honestly, I think in a world where conversing is so convenient and easy, that we've stopped being able to communicate.
Every second of the day we can scroll our way into each others lives. Its a matter of tapping a few screens and we're suddenly, privately, involved with each others lives, the photos from last nights party, that awesome day trip, those crazily cute dates, those new shoes, the fancy new makeup, car, baby... It is easier than ever to immerse yourself in a world that isn't yours, and with this new found power, although it is amazing, we are faced with new challenges.
We can do so much with our interconnected world. We can reach out to total strangers across the world, joined together by a shared love. We can find fans, friends- we have seen over the last few years that fan culture has developed into something bigger and crazier than we've ever experienced before. That's just one of the things we can now do using our connections. People literally create communities, Directioners and Belieber's are a prime example of a community created out of the world we live in. Tweeting, posting, hashtags and fanficiton, today's fans have a bigger voice than ever, a greater connection to their idols.We live in this strange world, where on-line communities, fuelled by the emotions of teen and pre-teen girls that made a few floppy hair lads into some of the most influential individuals on the planet. We have created a world of wealth and power for these boys out of a group of fans so international, so tight knit and at times mildly insane, that we created idols faster than we ever have before. That's crazy.
But here is the thing, in this new world we live in, this free world where we can express ourselves in ways we never could before we face new challenges too. It has become so easy, in the blur of profile pictures and likes and tweets, to lose our identities in trying to establish one. Being online is a way to establish a presence in the world. We are affected emotionally due to our exposure to each other. You can see other people's wealth, happiness, idyllic living situation. You can see the bottom row of Kylie Jenner's shoe collection and hate yourself a little bit, see those fast cars and toned model legs and clear skin you always wanted. You can scroll through Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pintrest- you could even do it old school and just Google stuff, but we can access images instantly. We live in a world where materialistically we can see everything we could ever want, but don't necessarily have. It has been argued that our society in the west now is also totally consumerist, in that individuals associate the acquisition of material items with happiness. So if we can always see what we don't have, the surely the way we live now can't be healthy for our emotional well-being?
We have lost our ability to talk to each other, exemplified in how most people my age, get really nervous talking to people they don't know so well on the phone. We are comfortable behind a monitor, or our phone screens. We are the children of the text. It is safe, it is secure, we can be whoever we want, sound as confident as we like and no one has to see we're in pyjamas with a tiny bit of custard on our cheek, or that we've watched about 4 episodes of 'My Drunk Kitchen' and the entire first series of Game of Thrones. Talking on the phone requires the ability to interact in a somewhat 'real world' sense with those around us, and it freaks us the hell out.
This was my issue with my friend: we hadn't communicated so we were both left in this rut feeling wholly isolated and weird. The second we resolved our feelings and issues together we suddenly realised how crazy we were for not sharing our thoughts with each other before- because we tell each other a bunch of stuff. We both know how much better it is to talk to each other and still chose to suffer in silence by ourselves- in hindsight crazy, but something I used to do a lot a couple of years ago.
Relationships have suffered. The way that we go about getting each others attention, what is regarded as romantic has changed drastically. We rely on likes and comments and that kind of validation to make us feel a sense of love. I'm not even going to discuss how social media and popular culture has affected the way adultery and treatment of women is viewed because that's a whole other ball game. But I think it's important to see that we have led ourselves into a world where the way we treat each other is depicted all over the place, expectations of relationships and trends etc #RelationshipGoals are going crazy! We need to stop viewing romance and love as this thing to check off a list. We need to stop using other people's relationships as our structure of how to live life. The whole point of love is that it's a feeling, the spontaneity of the thing is what makes it special, what brings people together- and we're losing that. We're not communicating with each other, people don't call t tell you goodnight, and a text can be misunderstood, tones are misinterpreted and it's hard for genuine emotion to be expressed and understood.
Material consumption is on a NEW LEVEL because companies have gone beyond advertising. Instagram has done their job for them, we see images on social media every day of the bag, the shoes, the jeans. Blogs and Tweets, statuses from celebrities, beautiful girls, "ballers"- we see the material life that so many of us dream of. We see a life someone has. We see a life we want, the things we want, and consequently strive to buy and achieve. In some ways this is a very good thing expanding the idea of meritocracy and competition in society to achieve this idyllic lifestyle- but it also means trends and fashions become an obsession on new level. Girls in shorts, plaid shirts and Timbilands after evry Chris Brown video, Chanel bags selling out after Kendall Jenner gets a new one- I mean jeez the Kylie Jenner lip challenge! We are so disconnected from the real world trying to be like that, trying to achieve this materialistic equilibrium that we believe will bring us bliss. It's crazy.
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