sept. 26th, 2022
before this year, i didn't know there was a term for this tiring addiction, this horrible disease that takes and takes until you have nothing left of yourself to give.
the more you feed it, the stronger it gets. the more you become reliant on the digital world, the more you begin to crave constant stimulation until you can't breathe without the approval of others.
chronically online.
our generation is chronically online.
we live our lives online first, and in reality second. we have more internet friends than friends we can meet in person. our entire identity is so reliant on the things we do online that the smallest things can ruin our day and destroy us completely.
we can even find love online, if we're lucky. but we're never lucky enough to find someone that's close to us. it always ends up turning into a long-distance relationship with someone in a distant timezone, worlds apart from you.
you talk about someday living together, but you both know, deep down, that it's a far-fetched fantasy. love rarely lasts, and a love like this, with so many obstacles in the way, has no chance of happening.
friendships are even harder to maintain. one minute, you could be best friends, and the next minute, you're thrown out and easily replaced by someone else, making you wonder if it was even real.
and after a while, you start to lose sense of your own identity and the identities of others. everything becomes a blur. conversations blend together. time moves faster and faster, leaving you behind.
trying to unplug and ground yourself in reality doesn't work either. as soon as i've been gone for long, i feel the siren call of the internet beckoning me back.
my poor dopamine-starved brain cries out to me, begging for just a small taste.
the uncomfortable slowness of how reality feels like without the internet reminds me of how far i've fallen off the treadmill that is our modern-day society.
everywhere i look, people are plugged in. people are connected. and to resist that sort of connection becomes very lonely.
maybe, deep down, we're all too afraid to admit that we're scared of being alone.
maybe that's why it's so socially acceptable to scroll through your dissociation box all day, feeding your chronically online mind, listening to the internet tell you that everything will be okay eventually and that you'll be okay.
but what is okay?
and will we ever be okay?
... will i ever be okay?
YOU ARE READING
arcane magic
Short Storya book of poetic ramblings, where words have the power to make us feel both lost and found all at once. an exploration of what it means to be alive and feel things and why we're here.
