These days living your life means being online.
It's strange how fast the opinion about the internet, playing with your device instead of being outside has changed. Today you need to have at least one, better two devices to stay connected. Connected to your friends, relatives, the library, school, the doctor, physiotherapist, the bank, city, taxes and nearly everything you can think of. Indeed shopping is one of those "necessary" steps you are forced into too. No matter if it's for groceries, clothes, shoes, vitamins, a pizza or pet toys. Life, our life is forced into it, and those of the next generations will grow up in an online world, an unrealustic world.
The phrase "it isn't real" was used in our family as the children watched television and saw what is far from realistic. Cartoons, animations, films... We still say it as a kind of joke, if we hear fake news and as a memory of these days. "It isn't real."
Online life, sex, hugs, kisses aren't real. We connect to people worldwide but in the real world, we would not greet or meet, avoid and not invite them into our houses.
Connecting is easy if you don't see a person, don't hear or smell him/her, if you are not confronted with the daily habits, issues, fears. The anxiety, depressions, that annoying person and his dirty house, the collection of trash... It doesn't affect us.
It isn't real what we share with others even if we show a part of our life, our feelings. We do not show the whole picture which isn't such a big deal as long as we are aware of what we see, aware of the fact the picture we paint of someone can be wrong, totally the opposite of what we had in mind. We can not blame the other for it. Our brain does it to us. We love to close our eyes to what we do not like or can't cope with. It's a natural thing to do. It's a way to survive.
We all know no one likes the sad and bad one unless this person is known worldwide and the media makes a spectacle.
There are people on social media spreading the "stay positive" and "focus on the bright side of life" phrases. Memes, quotes, are filled with words that might feel good in the first place but on long term it only helps if you are willing to ignore yourself and lie. If you sell your soul and are fine with losing yourself, not sharing your feelings, not connecting for real. Once you join a group of "happy heart preachers" your glass needs to be full 24/7 and there's no room left, it's even forbidden, to say how you feel.
Once you switch off your device you sit alone, you are alone and worse of all feel lonely. You feel empty and cry your eyes off or wish you could cry but you forgot how. You try to repeat those quotes about "happiness is a choice" as a mantra but it doesn't help. Depression takes over. You are a fraud. There's no one you can talk to and if... they don't hear you or say your life isn't that bad at all but what do they know? They never met the real you and neither you met them.
It's hard to show some interest.
It's difficult to hear and feel other people, people different from us. We lost connection to those close to us generations ago. We assume or even truly believe a bloodbind or marriage stands for being connected. Perhaps our grandparents, my grandparents, invested in others. Though they worked hard they saw it as their plight to talk, to visit the ones they knew, to call them once a week and sit around the kitchen table to discuss. My grandmother walked over one hour to visit a friend, an elderly lady living alone. She took care of herself although she had Alzheimer's. It was television, gaming and the internet that opened doors to a different world but also closed the one to those nearby and our real self.
Today we are too busy to call for one hour. Not even once a week is managable not even if we are jobless. We prefer to game, search online for the best shoes, the cheapest phone or the perfect match. We search for someone who can fill that hole inside of us, a hole we cannot get fill of ourselves.
Connecting to others...
Reaching out to someone is so much easier today. We travel worldwide with our device. Google translate helps us with our conversation and there's no need to be great in reading and writing or grammar. There are tools for everything if you play it smart and love and money can be found everywhere. Some generations will struggle but in the end, we all will or have to find our way on the web.
Online is the new normal and it helps to keep people inside. The rapists, protestors, elderly, children and criminals. The world outside will be a better one and it's good for the environment. What our world inside looks like is up to each one of us. If you never get dressed, never open your window, keep producing garbage and stare at a screen hoping for a miracle, it won't do you any good. A healthy body needs a healthy mind and the only one who can take care of that is you. No matter where you live find people you can connect to, can be yourself with. Not one person but more. People who can lift you and you are willing to help climb out of the hole. It's not connecting if you do not hear what is said, if you close your eyes for the real person, reality. You do not connect if you wear a mask if you have to wear one to be liked.
Not hearing, smelling, touching someone can be a plus but it works the other way round too. Like it or not lving online is not only the future but already a fact. More shops and businesses will disappear out of the streets and can only be found online. The monopoly of a few will increase while the rest goes bankrupt. The only thing left is to find an internet connection and get used to and use it, going out there and find those who love to be connected to you.
