Sometimes I just want to state the obvious because otherwise it doesn’t feel so obvious anymore.
One obvious fact no one can rebuke is that the internet is virtual.
Simple enough, right? But what are the consequences? More aptly, what are the consequences of you spending time on things that are virtual?
See, from my experience virtual is a bedrock of deceit. It isn’t at all how it appears to be. It isn’t living, yet tries to mimic reality all the time. And it really messes - REALLY MESSES, REALLLLLLY MESSES with your HEAD.
You don’t have to observe the consequences just from your personal life. I’m sure deep inside you feel people are turning a little crazier. That’s because they have this bubble that supports an entirely distorted reality, baked in virtual.
Regardless I have this cycle (and neocities is just perhaps the tenth iteration of this cycle) where I am disgusted with my internet use, so I delete everything. Then I stay alone for a solid month. Then somehow I use some sites again, maybe contact people I used to know, and then I’m back right in the tar.
And it is frustrating. There’s nothing really here, right?!
So why do I keep falling in the tar pit? Because real life isn’t real anymore either. The internet has encroached upon reality so much, that it has distorted reality itself. There’s no one to talk to (with purpose). There’s nothing to do (with others). No one really needs me (which is both a relief and a confusion). You go out with a computer in your pocket. What’s there to say? What is there to say?
There’s nothing. Is it my fault? But I know reality is probably the way out. Or is it? I am still not sure. In lieu of such debate, I consider trying to find the magic others do in the internet. I try again, the cycle begins, and I end it feeling more disillusioned, more lost. Not hopeless. But certainly the other two.
There’s nothing everywhere, but I (believe I) tried. I did it all but it was all aimless. I tried reality, but gave up. You mind your P’s and Q’s, you keep in touch, you practice some empathy, you attempt to do different things, but nothing happens. Nothing feels real. You often just feel more and more alienated because of how you see the world, or how you can no longer see the world, or how the world is no longer within the realm of your possibilities or what you want out of it (or you just want out).
So I just feel Taunted. I am Taunted by these people who are in a fugue (or a personal paradise I can’t be?), believing in some sort of relationship that isn’t real (or can’t be real for me), that ends at any moment, that is built upon convenience (when relationships entire purpose is to withstand difficulty, etc) and yet somehow I just keep feeling like I’m the insane one. That I don’t get it. So I try again. I vaguely try on neocities, sustaining a pseudonym. But it still claws at me. Is this what I want, aren’t I just in a web of lies? After getting used to a feeling of alienation for so long, the thought of purposeful connection leaves me feeling vaguely trapped.
The internet is virtual. Can it be something more — and if it can, do you even want it to be? There’s something terribly wrong about this entire conversation. It feels as though the entire world traps you in a passive observatory; maybe there’s a hidden virus in modern conversation, but it is oddly soulless.
It just feels soulless, and I am fairly certain the internet is nothing either.
Many, many years I’ve found a middle ground in anonymous imageboards. But it’s just another tar pit. There’s nothing there except propaganda and little laughs that vaguely make you feel you’re a part of a culture but it is all unreal and these aren’t your friends and you are slowly being contorted into a minion for whoever is psychologically dominant on that corner of the web.
It’s just hard to remember that. I’m not sure where to draw the line, or if a line should be drawn.
Because I am the bird who has come to love its cage. Only when painted clouds pass my corner do I feel Taunted; but lately I’ve come to accept that the era of V-formations has come to a close.
That personal paradise for those who can’t sink into the wired would be silence, the absence of what is.