May 18: Clearly it’s been a while since I last wrote a post for this blog. There were some facets involving my family I needed to engage with, as well as a deeply personal experience to undertake. Such things are not meant to be shared in so public a place. In fact, I would say that bringing that kind of attention to those experiences would fundamentally disrupt the kind of alchemy being undertaken and impact the results trying to be achieved.
Outlets such as these blog-spaces, social media, and other technological platforms present a totally unprecedented affect on the development of mental/emotional flow, providing a constant temptation for attention and external validation. It’s very clearly proving to be something of a substantial issue in regards to the effective functionality of human consciousness. I can’t help but feel we are collectively sharing way too much, way too easily, far too quickly, without allowing the proper internal processes to actualize before bringing concrete definitions of said experiences out into the world. There’s a tremendous fracturing effect that can come from oversharing oneself online, the sense of self overly orienting towards the response of others rather than the actual embodied experience.
I won’t say much on the subject of my experiences these past few months beyond that it was incredibly intensive and deeply profound, changing much of how I feel about myself and life in general, very much for the better. I do not believe I could have achieved that had I been sharing of it here (or any other public forum) throughout. Even talking about it to those I am very close with and know me well proved to have substantial limits.
All of that leaves me with the thought that we are essentially losing touch with these deeper, intensive parts of our individual totality through excessive digital expression, distracting our awareness away from authentic self-understanding through the inescapably synthetic nature of online life, whether through the fixation on a curated expression of self or the similar presentation of others. Even in this moment as I write these words, attempting to capture the thoughts and feelings running through me in relation to this idea, I can sense the disruption of full spontaneity as I work to calculate this idea through words I know will be read by others. In order to craft this, I must, in effect, go out of myself, and thus become disconnected from the intimate immediacy of my holistic present experience.
I can’t help but wonder if we are truly benefited by this immensely all-encompassing technological influence. What are we sacrificing by directing our consciousness out of manifested life and into the biologically disconnected realm of technology with such frequency? I’m honestly not entirely certain what to think about that right now. Clearly I am continuing to engage with it, directing my mind and awareness into this very blog post, and as it stands I do not foresee myself ceasing in this particular stream of creative exploration.
There’s no question it affords a unique method of connection and communication within the human experience, but there’s also no doubt (in my mind) that it’s essentially a solely human experience. Trees do not post pictures of themselves on Instagram. The wind doesn’t upload its tones to Spotify. The stars can’t speak of their silent wisdom on Twitter (or X or whatever). I have to wonder how much of the divine is actually able to be translated and transmitted into whatever layer of existence lies behind the screen.
Obviously this is all speculation without any easily discernible answer, nor an overtly measurable effect, but I personally see value in pondering subjects and ideas awash in uncertainty and ambiguity, and with the increased pace that technology is interfacing and effecting the way in which we think— AI already threatening to overtake our own inbuilt capacity for creative and critical thinking, and the world slipping more and more into baffling, dissonant forms of conflict and confusion by means of digital discourse—I think it’s well worth pondering these things, even without an obvious answer. I suppose after coming off of a period of decreased online engagement and increased communion with the innate flow of lifeforce, both personal and environmental, the distinction in the energetic, sensory experience feels a little more pronounced right now, and honestly somewhat disorienting.
Perhaps healthy balance and honest self-regulation in relation to technological orientation is the key with this. That strikes me as making the most sense currently. But I fail to see a healthy and honest relationship to technological affect taking place in our world, and I can’t help wondering at all that is being implied by that. And considering implicit wisdom seems to be losing ground against explicit presumption in the online sphere, I wonder if we’ll ever resolve those imbalances…
But on a rather contrary note, part of the positive that I feel is taking place in my own world is an increased faith in the operations of spiritual or divine processes, so despite however this all unfolds, I find myself easing ever more into a belief that it’ll all work out in however it needs to, one way or the other.
I often like to think of the internet as an increased expression of the mirror of Narcissus, so perhaps what it’s really doing is affording us the opportunity to see ourselves, in all the beauty and ugliness, chaos and consideration, and the straight up idiosyncratic nature that has always been innate to the human condition in a way so visceral and direct, we might finally see ourselves reflected back with a potency that spurs us on to become something better.
Whatever the case might need to be, consider me a strong proponent of switching oneself off from the online sphere from time to time, and really sinking into the greater flow of present, direct life in order to allow the cultivation of connection between the authentic interior and the embraced exterior. I certainly feel myself as having been greatly benefited by doing so for those past few months.
ACMindworks 
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