Forgive me reader, for it is 3 months since my last opinion,
It’s not that I haven’t had opinions in that time, like everyone else, I have plenty.
I’ve just not had the need to express them, perhaps because I have also had trouble to form them in a recognisable shape.
They say in order to deal with your emotions, you need to be able to give them a name, a description. I feel the same for thoughts and opinions. However, most of the time by mind is like Medusa’s hair and I get all tangled up.
Marie Kondo for the mind
The honest truth is, I feel overwhelmed by information and communication around me. I’m tired of consuming external opinions, news and discussions, 90% of which are negative or forceful. Some are too complicated but I must to push through.
After reaching a point of mental overflow, I came to a standstill.
The standstill isn’t a negative state or a state of apathy. It’s more of a protective shield against the incessant army of information bytes. I’m not burnt out, not lethargic, not depressed. I have Marie Kondo-ed my brain.
For the last 3 months I have been mainly focusing on my daily job, which I’m enjoying much more than before; on my family, and I seem to be yelling less at the kids and even enjoying cooking; and on me, whereby I am proud to say I have greatly minimised guilt feelings of random ‘me’ time. I love home office.
I haven’t done anything spectacular in this time, to justify the not writing, like training for a marathon, doing amazing self-improvement or finishing any of my other projects.
I’ve just been.
Perhaps this is what mindfulness is about, to just be, now. There has been a surprising calmness (relatively speaking) in my mind.
The tyranny of Buts
In the back of that calm mind, however, there is always the “but”. But - don’t get too complacent, don’t get too comfortable and passive. But - you should write your blog. It’s about time you had a profound opinion. Come on then, think of something!
The problem with feeling somewhat at peace within is that the peace is soon disrupted by wondering if there is something wrong with you. Because you are at peace. Are you being just an unambitious waste of space?
Accepting a peaceful state of mind and being ok with it is much harder than experiencing a state of anxiety. It’s new to us. We seem to have a paradoxical aversion to peace, despite all our efforts to meditate and be in touch with our intuition.
Curiously, I have not had the need to meditate in this time.
The importance of being uninformed
I’m fairly sure the reason I reached this state of being is because I stopped reading ‘important’ things.
There are at least five different newsletters that grace my mailbox every week, all incredible, interesting and informative, plus frequent installments from 3-4 writers I am following on Substack.
I read, no I browse, 4 different newspapers on my phone and a couple in print.
I listen to 3 podcasts that feed my mind and I feel gratitude towards their creators for the effort and dedication they put in to produce high quality content (Prof G Show, Sean Carroll’s Mindscape, The Radical AI Podcast).
While I still listen to the occasional podcast, I mostly now read the gossip/society/culture sections of the papers. I can't cope with the news.
I don’t read the newsletters anymore.
In a knee jerk reaction of information-phobia I now delete them immediately, like dealing with a lepper that might infect you.
The FOMO of FOMO (FOFOMO?)
A wave of panic ripples through me each time I click the delete button that this might be leading to my mental demise and that I am missing out on valuable and life changing information. My friend the FOMO.
We love to be informed and feel smart by surrounding ourselves permanently with news and analysis/opinions, but at what point does that just become crackling noise and we can no longer tune into our own personal radio station? Could we be missing out on something else, much more important and personal, by acting on our information FOMO and our addiction to input?
There’s too much available to us. Too much opinion, too much analysis, too much reflection. The internet is open to everyone as a journalistic medium and it’s all there to be inhaled.
Information has become like another element on the periodic table, that has mixed with oxygen as necessary for our survival, but I feel it may be slowly choking us.
Opinion Ergo Ego
Behind this global production of endless opinions and analysis, mostly with the good intention to share, inform and impact, there is ultimately also the Ego. The Ego that wants to say something, the ego that wants to be heard, the ego that wants to be agreed with and the ego that wants to have followers and likes.
And I am no different to that.
I am also sharing my opinions and reflections in a public space, I also like positive feedback, ergo there is also an ego involved.
Can we even separate opinion from ego? Do we even need opinions?
I don’t know.
That’s partly why I also didn’t feel like writing anymore. Then I would be like all the other opinion sharers, who I am avoiding and deleting, and I would become the crackling noise for someone else. I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to say.
My mind was also crushed by all the things that bother me in the world, so it couldn't even speak up anymore.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
The news we read are not exactly cheerful but I do like to know what’s going on around me in order to feel connected and to feel that I am a caring citizen.
But does it really matter? Do we only keep up with the news to tell others that we read that article too? Again, ego?
The news makes me feel more connected and compassionate to others in a state of misery, but whose fate I can’t really change. I am therefore less connected to me, the one person that would be the direct channel for change. I become a passive consumer of hopelessness rather than an active agent for small change.
As a data person it’s embarrassing to say that I avoid statistical analysis and graphs in the media, which are usually accompanied by some convoluted interpretation to support a political hypothesis. I really can't look at them anymore as I know very well that information is relative. As the saying goes “All (statistical) models are wrong, some are useful” and I feel the same can be said about information.
What does it help me to consume information?
I may be more informed on the spot but it doesn’t make me feel any less angry, less helpless and any more likely to cleverly use the information in a heated argument as I will for sure forget it tomorrow.
Information is not only relative, it is transient.
Tomorrow it will be replaced by something else, probably more outrageous. Do you remember what happened two weeks ago?
I am tired of reading about COVID, India, Russia, Israel, the dying polar bears, the yo-yo effect a single man has on Bitcoin. Luckily Trump is one less headline now.
I am tired of reading that Amazon doesn’t pay tax, it makes me so angry that I want to cry.
I am tired of reading analysis that all of the Big Tech companies (and the people behind them) are greedy psychopaths. I agree. And yet they continue to make skyrocketing profits in times of global suffering. And yet we continue to use them.
As my secret crush "Prof G" says, the problem is not them, it’s us [Scott Galloway: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google manipulate our emotions | TED Talk]. Why are we not reacting?
Are we Kamikaze? Not so calm anymore...
The destructive effect Big Tech has on society, economics and the climate (with all the data centres burning through resources) is now more or less common knowledge. However there are still very few people who are angry enough to go against the tide and move away from Big Tech (e.g. change your email from Gmail and close down Facebook).
Basically we can’t live without Big Tech and they know it. I am still on WhatsApp and I hate it.
And it scares me that we are being passive and accepting.
Rather than watching from our TV the war in Syria and feeling ‘sorry’ for the people there and deriding the powers, this feels like a subliminal war that we are actively a part of. A war against our rights and our future, a war that we are willingly fueling.
I am scared of the future with an all mighty Amazon controlling not only delivery of books and food but also access to our personal health data, our finances and our children’s data. This creates a two class global society of “with us” or “without us” where Mr Bezos can control your life based on this exclusive membership with one button click.
I am scared of the future destroyed by the tech giants too busy racing to Mars using funny money, rather than paying their tax and investing in our environment and democracy. Why, why do you need so much money?
I am scared of being in the underground society scavenging for food in 30 years time, Blade Runner style. Eat all you can now, it may be gone soon.
I know I’m being overly-dramatic, and much less at peace within as I claimed I was, but my relationship to information is changing because I see that information alone is useless. It’s what we do with it that’s important.
And I am missing the action.
Rather than feeling nourished by information, I’m being starved of hope.
Beauty and creativity against the information deluge
Aside from organising an uprising against everything that bothers me,
the only antidote I see to being crushed by opinions, analysis and information (also apart from ignoring it!) is culture and art.
I need pretty pictures, art, inspiring (human created) music, beautiful films that stop your heart and take you to another world, books, concerts, dance.
I need culture that I choose, not that is pushed to me to consume.
One of the pandemic’s knock-on effects has been deprivation of culture (going to the cinema, going to concerts, to exhibitions) and as compensation we have been drowning in news, statistics, opinions and stupid TV series (yes, me too).
Culture and creativity is what feeds our souls and what separates humans from the non-human animals (and robots). And we do like to believe we are the supreme species after all (could be debatable in a few years).
And so a visit to the Museum for Design in Zürich placated some of my frustration.
The soulful experience of beauty and creativity freed up my mind of any targeted content, opinion and outrage that I could finally produce something of my own. An opinion.
From the Exhibition [Total Space - Museum für Gestaltung Zürich]
I came across your blog. I enjoyed reading it, and the way thoughts and opinions are identified and organized. I would also like to share some views about the impact of high tech on humanity and the way we respond.
The pandemic, to start with, is not new, as epidemics have ravaged humanity throughout the years. However, it is leaving us more anxious, utterly hesitant, extra temper-less, and voluntarily throwing us very close to technology. We excel, and the big techs are outperforming.
Big Techs - multinational immortals and sorcerer stone's seekers (or owners), have no borders, no religion, no mercy, no GOD. They are on both sides of the coin, even when flipped, their probability is always positive. They…