Writing Within

I forgot I write for the pure pleasure of unveiling the corners of my mind. This year, words seem not enough. Mainstream media drew my attention to its discourse. Each day, I am inundated with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of news messages that are shot like ammo to desensitize viewers and isolate them from hearing what the other party wants to say. After 10 months of going through this echo chamber, writing seems trivial. Journalism looks like an excuse to use rhetoric to forge new synthetic meanings, changing context and dehumanizing people. 

The current status of the internet and its network of entangled algorithms turns out to be nocive in shaping a healthy opinion about the world. It is harder to find dissident voices as now opposite crowds are conducted to videos or audios of their 'preferred' content. It is no longer: What do you want to see, or do you want to be surprised? The thirst for economic results through clicks is keeping people in their own bubbles, like a teenager in a room filled with posters of his preferred music groups who claim that there are no better bands than the ones he listens to. 

Your ideas might be wrong, but do you still want to feel you sound reasonable? Just click here and watch this 14:00-minute video with selected cuts taken out of context! Do you want to ridicule the other political party regardless of some of their reasonable points? No problem; check out this montage about how silly the opposite candidate looks under the sun.

But this goes far. As every expression of popular media becomes effortless, thanks to AI, I am not only losing interest in written content but also in video format. I cannot stand watching video after video anymore. The editing, flashy tempo, and over-the-pitch locution it is starting to give me headaches. My sight and perception are numb, and I ask myself to close the curtains. I need a visual bench that lulls my mental state. 

Right now, as I write this article, AI keeps suggesting me non-sensical corrections, even trying to change my apparently discouraging views into positive ones. I want to express sadness, AI! That is the whole purpose of writing... expressing your feelings. Can you read this?

I wonder if we are close to the death of the homo videns. I do not want to spend my time watching a video that, in 5 more minutes, will be replaced with another useless partisan message. I want something I can recall with pleasure, with calm. I want to read how others break bread and let the crumbs fall, how they count stars, and peruse the blue hues of the threes at night.

There is this need to return to the roots, where everything was simpler and had its charm. I need to take advantage of the moment; I need a clear mind that can differentiate lies from the truth—even my own. Many of our lives are the ones told to ourselves. I realized people don't want to see themselves in their purest form. I get that many do not want to see the devil in the mirror.

Men and women fear the truth, and it is not about sharing what they believe is the truth but more about expressing a different opinion to the group in the other corner of the room. There is no doubt that having a clear mind is no longer impossible to reach; on the contrary, it is attainable, but we refuse to see our redness inside, our warm innards of living creatures; fearful are the ones who exclude themselves from that passion. They prefer to point out to others, mocking and accusing them of bullies when they are the ones playing Scut Farkus.

Now, everybody seems unable to even yell into their own pillow. We are losing the ability to scrutinize ourselves and recognize that we are not our marketed images but ghostly bodies emitting pulsars as a sign of our demise.

Perhaps writing can glim our souls. Let the layers covering our beings fall off and reveal the wounded creatures we have forgotten we are.