Downshifting

Okay, at first, fair warning: 

I'm sorry if I come across as really pseudo-intellectual and like I knew what I was talking about even though I'm only an 18-year-old with around 0.1 % life experience and would get instantly crushed in a serious debate, but it's just that I've been thinking about a lot lately and wanted to use this blog as some sort of a venting place where I could maybe spit out all my thoughts and vomit them into a pile of unedited garbage, which is probably cringy as it'll definitely come across as pseudo-intellectual bullshit coming from the mouth of a know-it-all 18-year-old who, in reality, has no idea what she's talking about. So you've been warned. (Also, considering that this is my blog, why do I have such a need to apologize in the first place?! If you're still here, reading the ramblings of some random girl, you must also be slightly strange. Besides, where is my self-esteem. I haven't even started and I'm already certain this post is going to be a) embarrassing and b) bullshit, ahaha.)

So, like I said in that last paragraph, I've been thinking about a lot. Mainly because finals are coming knocking at my door, so there's been some stress and... actually, quite a lot of it. I've been pretty busy with all this school-stuff. Knowing me, my own well-being isn't that high on my priority list as finals are approaching, and obviously my expectations and goals are pretty out there. So it's not an exaggeration to say I've been feeling it a little.

Amidst all this chaos, though, I've had time to think a lot (since I haven't dared to have hobbies, spend much time with friends or pretty much do anything other than study... Rip.), and I've maybe made a couple of discoveries about myself as a person, about life in general. Maybe I've already understood some of these things before, but it's just now that I finally make that final realization.

For instance, social media. I'm not bothering to check all my former posts, but I have a hunch I've been complaining about it before as well, ahaha. You could say that I've had quite a love-hate relationship with social media and different gadgets for pretty much as long as I can remember. I remember the time when smartphones became mainstream: I was around 14, and all of the sudden, the hallways at school became quiet during recess. Rows of people sitting, quietly, with a phone in hand. I vividly remember thinking to myself "wow, this is sad", as we didn't talk anymore. We didn't sing anymore, like we used to. We didn't do much at all (but we did play Subway surfer and that bouncy ball game, and of course Hay day on our phones). There were some days when I thought it was sad, but all in all, I kinda went with the flow. Playing mobile games, be it Mahjong or something more sophisticated, was fun, and there wasn't much else to phones. Yet.

In any case, I still had a childhood without phones and gadgets. We had a family phone right in our living room. That was all the phone I needed, up until I turned 9 when I got my first Nokia. Still, there were many days when I left it home, since all it had was "Snake" and a couple of ringtunes - it didn't feel necessary. The only reason I got it was so I could ring my parents if there ever was a problem. (At that point, I also got my first home keys. That was a big responsibility!)

In my childhood, we still had quite a lot of discipline at school. We had to stand up next to our little tables every morning, and sing "good morning, teacher" before we were told to be seated. We weren't allowed to chit-chat in class, phones or other technological things were forbidden during recess up until I turned 13 and began lower secondary (and even there, phones were put into a box before class). When having lunch, we were allowed to enter the cafeteria in queues of five, we had to sit up straight, use the knife with our right hand and the fork with our left. And guess what, even then, we all loved our teacher. She was fair, she was imaginative. Sometimes, our biology class turned into a conversation about whichever thing we started going on about. She told us lots of stories, and considering we were a music class, we sang and played a lot, even if we were supposed to study. We wrote stories all the time, and she read to us aloud. Sometimes, she told us stories about her own children or her own life. She hugged us a lot, gave us a lot of advice, never allowed anyone to be unfair (I also once vacuumed her USB-stick, but that's another story...). We had discipline, but not because we were yelled at or beaten up, and you know what, we had a good teacher. Everyone loved her.

Last spring, a couple of my friends and I went to that school to see her again. We sometimes go and say hi. I asked her, are kids still forbidden to use phones or other devices during recess, and she said no - it's impossible nowadays. I also asked if kids are more restless these days; in her opinion, they are.

Based on my research, scientists aren't quite sure whether social media has more perks or cons, so I can only give my own subjective, limited, possibly biased opinion... But according to some research, at least it has affected our memory (something I've noticed in myself as well). Facebook depression is a term some professionals use to describe the depression and inferiority one might feel when looking at other people's accomplishments through social media... And I don't have any proof to strengthen my claim, but I feel like kids are becoming more and more stressed because of the peer pressure social media creates when it comes to looks, clothes, partying and such.

So here are the things I've thought about social media:

A) It puts too much emphasis on success stories, making other people's lives seem much more impressive and positive than they actually are.

B) With all these trends coming and going, with all this need to stay relevant and up-to-date, and because good looks, beauty, and sexiness are good for receiving attention, it stresses lots of people out appearance-wise. Both girls and boys.

C) It enforces materialism and the idea that things and wealth make you happy.

D) It glorifies popularity, fame, and celebrities - what determines popularity is the amount of some artificial "fame", like likes, followers and such.

E) It makes you think people care (newsflash: they don't.).

Okay, lemme expand a little on those. So, in case you're not a kid of the late-1990s to early 2000s, I'll tell you what it's like. You go everywhere with a phone in hand. You have to share your experiences to others, otherwise it's as though they never happened - an experience isn't an experience unless you document and share it to others! You go to Venezuela, you go clubbing, you have any kind of social life: take pictures, put them on Snapchat, Insta, somewhere. You have to care about your Instagram feed. The more followers, the better. Your Snapchat will be filled with Mystories you couldn't care less about: everyone is going to Venezuela, going clubbing and having any kind of social life. These things lose their importance to you. Nothing matters anymore. Something absolutely radical will have to happen for you to even bat an eye. A trip to Cape Town? Bwah. Make it a trip to Cape Town in order to knit woolly socks to elephants, and then someone might care. I've seen it so many times, people go through their feeds, automatically double-pressing on every photo they see. They don't even look at them. They don't pay attention. They answer to your mindless chain-snaps just like you sent them: mindlessly. People do not care. There's too much to see, too many stimuli. Nothing is of importance.

The success stories. Tell me you haven't seen it, the rich guy with an artificial Pepsodent smile glued onto his face, that guy in a nice jacket telling you all these things you have to start doing, all these small steps you have to take (and most likely a couple of products to help you along the way) in order to become happy, successful, productive, just like him. Tell me you haven't seen it. All these people, successful, famous, and most importantly, happy. You want to be like them. You need to be like them. Linked to the last thing, you don't care about your average person - no, you want to become like Bella Thorne, like Gigi Hadid, you want to be the next Nick Bateman, the new Ryan Gosling. Oh my god, they are so attractive. Their lives look so incredible, filled with all kinds of amazing things, they look so, so happy. I want to achieve that, be like them. I want to be them.

And so, everyone shares the polished up sides of their lives. Those good selfie angles, "hey, which one is your good side?", neatly placed flowers and steaming cups of tea. Perfectly round butts, smiles not really reaching their eyes (because that'd make weird wrinkles around the eyes, besides, smiling too widely makes your nose look bigger). Do you want to know what that does to a kid's self-esteem? Well, just look at Instagram. Look at Musical.ly. Look at Youtube. Look at all these kids and teenagers, wearing the same clothes, wearing the same accessories, standing in little groups with their arms crossed and lips pouting, because they need to look cool. Always.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not oblivious to the fact that teenagers have always cared about their appearance and popularity, but I think these days it's becoming much more obsessive. It's not just "I need to fit in", it's "I need this product and this brand and this label to fit in". And it's not just in order to fit in, it's so that you could feel... worthy. It's so that you could feel attractive, because there are attractive people everywhere on the internet, "my god are they gorgeous, and they have such fun-looking lives too!", and when you look at your own face, well... It's nothing in comparison. It's plain. So you fill that gap, you fill it with the makeup and clothes and other products and advice the pretty people suggested.

You could say that I woke up, kind of. I've thought for a long time that it's a little unfortunate I put so much time and effort into social media stuff, into phone stuff, as I feel like it doesn't improve me as a person at all. It's not even fun, it's lazy and passive entertainment that gives an easy fix to boredom. It doesn't contribute to anything, and it's honestly stressful. I've felt the same obsession when you post something on Instagram and obsessively refresh the page to see if you've received any likes. I've gotten that same rush of dopamine whenever I've gotten a notification. I've counted how many likes I've gotten, and how fast. There was a time when I cared, too. When I passively scrolled through my Discover feed, when I watched the Mystories of celebrities and people I didn't even care about. All of the sudden, an hour, two hours, three, had passed. Whoops. I had done nothing.

I don't wanna go all Black Mirror on you, but my god. Have you ever looked, really looked at the kids in the streets, the people on trains, the teenagers at school, the people who are, I guess, supposed to sit together in a coffee shop? They're more interested in their phones than one another. They look... obsessed. They look like they're herded by their little blocks of glass and plastic. Try watching a movie with a friend who's more interested in spending time with a phone. Try doing anything fun at all. The kids going for a walk, they're playing Pokemon Go, noses glued onto their screens. No wonder we're all becoming fat. Phones offer enough mindless entertainment.

My imagination has gone to shit. I don't need imagination. The internet does all the imagining for me. My memory has gone to shit. I don't need to remember. The internet does all the remembering for me.

Literally, I don't remember the last time I wrote a story or a poem... But when I went to the cottage and didn't have the internet or any human interaction for a couple of days, guess what? I was bursting with stories, ideas! I used to be the one who made the weirdest stories in my head. I drew all the time. And I don't remember English vocab as well as I used to, because I can go to an online dictionary, type the word I was looking for and not burden my brain in the slightest. I don't need my long-term memory anymore, everything is so, so easy. (I also remember reading about the importance of grannies. Grandmas used to be the ones who told all the important tips, recipes, all that useful know-how and advice that stems from life experience. The article kind of wondered if the appreciation of elders has dropped because we don't need them anymore. They're a burden. All that information, well, there's the internet.)

I... I woke up, I guess. I realized I don't care. I realized no one else cares either, not in actuality. The people who care about you, they're the ones who'll tell you about things in person, and who you'll share your experiences with in person, because you have that level of connection. They're not a number in your likes, they're a person. A real person who you want to interact with.

After realizing this, I noticed I've actually gradually stopped using social media for months now. I don't use my Instagram anymore, hell, I haven't even downloaded it onto my new phone that I bought in July... I've killed every streak, and that felt so refreshing. I haven't sent snaps in ages, it seems. I don't watch Youtube, maybe sometimes in the evening when I want to unwind. I don't use Facebook. I barely send Whatsapp messages. Guess what, I've even stopped using my phone during class. Me, who has always scrolled something for four years! But now, I sometimes keep my phone in my pocket or in my bag! And at times, I leave it home. I try to mindfully keep it out of sight when having a conversation with someone. It's started to feel rude to keep it there all the time, like I wanted to do something other than to hang out with my friends.

A friend of mine has recently made the same "discovery", I guess. Together, we've had tons of conversations about it. We've felt the same kind of horror when looking at groups of friends, all on their phones, no one saying a word. We're both goddamn grandmothers. I don't want to come  across as an annoying preacher, so I won't tell people to "get off their phones" or something ridiculous like that. It's up to them whether they make the same sort of realization as I have, and I suppose it depends on the person whether they even agree with me. But jesus am I glad to have someone who can understand this... anxiety. I feel a genuine dread when I look around me. She described it as though she had woken from a slumber, as though she had been in a haze and that haze had cleared up now. I know this is dramatic, but in a way, it is dramatic. We were obsessed. Completely driven by our devices, by our obsession with apps and social media and other things, fame. We were shells. Little, hollow shells of people.

Because you can spend so much time with those apps. Your comfort may literally be dependent on your phone, and what happens if something happens to it? You discover that you're nothing. You, yourself, are nothing. You haven't contributed to anything. You are dependent on the things other people put out. You know nothing. You rely on everyone else. You don't like anything, you have no hobbies, you don't even know yourself. What are you? Who are you? What do you even want?

I've talked about this one friend before, too, she's one of the most obsessed ones. She lives her life through the lenses of others. Are other people staring at me? Do I look good? Was this maybe the wrong dress? I look so good in this picture. Why did she like my boyfriend's picture? Can you take pictures of me? And you take five pictures, "No, I look horrible", ten, "No, my legs look short", fifteen, "Ew!" You start to feel self-conscious, too. It's so energy-draining, being around someone like that, someone who is so caught up with the way other people view her, someone who weighs her worth based on other people. Someone who actually keeps track of her followers, someone who will inform you about that. ¨

It's also very sad.

You know what I think? I think I don't care. I don't care about our streak, about being on-fleek, I don't care about your pictures, I don't care about any of that anymore. I want to downshift. I want to get rid of this ridiculous cartwheel where we go round and round, searching for a happiness we will never find. If we want more and more, nothing is ever enough. I want it mind over matter, quality over quantity, my mental and physical health over fame, my friends and family over followers. I don't care about an artificial, controlled reputation through staged photos and faked smiles. I don't care. I don't care anymore. I don't care if all of this disappears.

You know what I want? I want to have my own life. Feelings, experiences, I want the wind on my skin, the touch of human skin, the sound of laughter, the feeling of running way too fast, the taste of other people's lips, I want to party like the night will never end, I want to swim during January, I want to cook for the ones I love. I want to listen to music and light candles, I want to hug someone I love. I want to LIVE. I'm tired of living an artificial life through pixels and screens. They're not real! They are all but.

Spirituality is embarrassing, philosophizing is boring, thinking is overrated, seriousness is lame.

But maybe that sort of thing is exactly what's lacking and causing so much illness? Perhaps because we are so focused on fussing and flurrying, stressing and earning, running here and there, perhaps because we spend eight hours of our day in a job we despise, at our stupid conveyor belts that never stop, perhaps because we only find peace in those couple of hours we have when we come home, tired, after a long day of boring work, perhaps because inner peace is something we try to buy, not to discover, we feel so broken. Burned out. Tired, sad, angry.

I'm scared. I'm scared that I'm just a stupid kid who's over-thinking things, who is wrong, who is embarrassing. I'm scared that I'll never find another person who's willing to listen, to have a conversation, to see me as someone who can be taken seriously. I'm ridiculously afraid that I'm pretentious and intolerable, even though I don't say these things aloud, ahaha. It's difficult for me to explain what exactly I feel, but maybe it's something like this: I'm afraid I'm a party-pooper, a fearmonger, a dumb, scared girl with a foil hat. I don't want to be some peace-loving pacifist tree-hugger, but considering I love doing yoga and drinking tea, maybe that's exactly what I am, lol. I wonder if anyone agrees with me, aside from that one friend. I wonder.

There are so many things I dislike. For instance, the "badassery" -syndrome. How feeling is embarrassing and caring is uncool. How roasting is an art. How hurting people, making them uncomfortable and sad, is actually a good thing. "Laugh with many, don't trust any", what can I say.

That's so... lonely. It's really lonely. Whenever I see a person like that, I can't help feeling they're hiding behind a hard shell, and under that hardened, thick shell is a frail and fragile person, terribly afraid of being hurt and showing real emotion. So they hide behind their coldness, just so that they could scare people into not hurting them. If you hurt someone first, they won't hurt you... Being real and genuine makes you vulnerable. But it's exactly that vulnerability that shows trust, and makes you you. Opening up shows you value someone, you trust them. You give them the blade, they choose not to stab you. That's what caring is.

Real human interaction. That's what we crave for. Besides, if we put all the hours we wasted on social media into something more... meaningful, what could we reach? Imagine, I could already have written so many stories, painted so many more paintings. I assume I would've read more, ran more and done much more yoga. Maybe I'd have many more memories, good, good memories...

I want to downshift. No more easy escapism, no more mindless, passive entertainment. The more work I put into something, the better I feel. I want to escape that trap of productivity, status, wealth, achievement. Maybe that's not something people usually think in the Western world, but guess what? I don't mind. I want to study the things I like, wear the things I want, I want to become a doctor because of my endless fascination in medicine, because of my drive to help, because of my drive to challenge my brain. I want to find someone I can love with everything, with all I have. Maybe we can escape together? Yeah, let's run away. Let's go somewhere far, far away, even if just in our minds. Let's escape, let's love, let's forget this difficult world. Let's go deep into the wilderness, let's hike, let's laugh, let's cry. Let's be real human beings. Real. Genuine. I don't want lies, artificial smiles, I don't want any fake promises anymore. Let's create a world of our own... Our own reality, where it's human interaction, family, heart-to-heart communication, friends, where it's real experiences, feelings, hard work and your own heart that matter.

Things that truly matter to me:

nature and animals:

my asshole cat (look at his little tongue!!!):

 my friends (and their dogs), represented by my friend's CUTE doge:

this set of images: 

and finally, my family, but since I wouldn't put recognizable pics in here, here's some from my brother's military oath (he's somewhere there... somewhere... probably)