#9: The self-love philosophy

The 21st century has so far been the most exciting and terrifying ride of our lives.
Never before technology has been such a permanent presence in our lives, nor we’ve been so easily connected to the world yet so miserably lonely.

We’ve completely embraced progress, let it crawl up into every aspect of our lives, control it to a point where we can’t imagine moving forward without it.
Social media, apps, smartphones have the solution to all our problems and in many cases it’s like having a Swiss army knife in the palm of your hands. As normalised as it is now, it feels almost surreal to look back imagining a time where we weren’t carrying a device in our pockets capable of taking photos, book holidays and buying stocks with.

It’s obviously not all sunshine and rainbows and accepting virtual aid in almost every aspect of our lives has come with its own set of problems.
These groundbreaking inventions made possible to connect with people from your childhood you thought you had lost contact with forever or experience the mind-blowing sensation of watching what’s happening on the other side of the world in just one click.
In just few years, we’ve completely adjusted to this new factory setting of reality and we started taking for granted things that only 20 years ago would feel far fetched.

The external impact on our everyday lives is under the sun and the metamorphosis has happened in the blink of an eye, but what about the underlying issues directly deriving by incorporating such advanced technology in our lives?
At a first glance, it might seem like we hold the key to unlimited happiness. However, a deeper look will revelal the crude reality of it all: we’ve never been loneier, more crippled by social anxiety. We are burdened by intellectual and phylosophical boredom, plagued by depression.

When these dynamics are factored in into the fabric of our society the other sad realisation is that it crosses every generation, only with different degrees of severity and acceptance based on how well they’re internalized and processed.
It’s clear it’s a self-made prison, we created a box, we labelled it and turn it into our safe space where we can avoid confrontation and feel comfortable.
This delicate bubble is fueled by mundane everyday life actions, necessary to anaesthetise and bottle up the whirling chaos of emotions inside us. The endless replay of the same episode which can sometimes our life be it’s gives “into the Matrix” vibes, like an ever lasting Deja vu ‘Groundhog Day’ style.

We truly start to see through the mist once we break the loop, we take a break from our oppressive lifestyle and we have the opportunity to rethink about the way we act and feel in our own environment.
One thing is not talked about enough is what can only be defined as ‘The age of collective boredom’, the modern answer to the age old question: ‘What is our purpose in life?’.
But what are we really talking about here? Well, let me explain. The last couple of centuries have marked extraordinary advances in most essential fields: technology, mass production, transportation, medicine and so on.
Such achievements have massively changed the way we experience life and even lengthen our expectancy while improving its quality, but they weren’t obtained without a price to pay.
Hard times create tough people, tough people create easy times, easy time create soft people, soft people create hard times. This is not just a cliche motivational speakers like to throw around to wow a crowd, it’s rooted in a harsh reality.

Precious generations fought wars, died away from their families or devoted their entire existence to solve one of the many challenges humanity has faced throughout its history.
This is how you get the various icons studied in history books to this day.
Today, despite the critical balance economics is experiencing and homelessness numbers skyrocketing, we mostly live a fairly comfortable life. We can afford all the basic necessities like rent, food and transportation, every few years we change phone and get the latest flashy iPhone that looks just like the previous one or buy a ridiculously expensive jacket because we want people to ask us how much we paid for it to see the expression on their faces when we tell them.
It all seem to go full circle with the general point at hand.

The more distractions we surround ourselves with, the more noise we immerse ourselves in not to listen the voices in our head, the more time we spend doomscrolling through social media 15 seconds reels of recipes we will never make, the more free time we give up, the less in contact with reality we feel.
This reflects in our partner’s choice too, especially when looks become the main driving factor against compatibility causing many people to get stuck in unhappy relationships or (arguably even worse) jump from bad relationships to even worse. Some of us need drama and chaos to keep them moving, to shake them from the self-made cage filled with apathy and disillusion toward reality so we can lie to ourselves into having found this so agonised meaning to our very presence in the universe.

The obsession with our virtual presence on our social media to showcase our best moments is normally a way to hide the pain we’re going through and using momentary attention to lift ourselves up and feeing seen, important.
Here’s the importance of self-love, often confused with individuality and leaving everyone behind while solely nurturing the temple of your personal life. No need for a stable partner or a group of close friends to rely on when you have yourself 24/7 as your own rock to anchor to when there’s high sea.
But genuine self-love is something different, it’s about embracing who you really are, following the passion that truly moves you and not feeling afraid of expressing your opinion. The last one is particularly true as fear of rejection and inability to entertain discussions about ideas we disagree about has forced us to face a crossroad where the options seem to be bending your own beliefs to fit a certain group of peers or casting yourself out. But once again, this is a misleading concept as feeling comfortable in your own skin is the only way to test a friendship and verify how genuine it really is.

Ultimately, ‘What is all this yapping about’ you might ask and you’d be right. The reason I make a big deal about these issues is that they permeate every aspect of our lives to the point where we don’t even notice them anymore being used to them the way we are.
When kids that can barely walk or speak spend hours playing games on iPad their perception of reality is heavily altered, making harder to change it back once they grow up. This is incentivised by neglecting parents, either too disinterested in raising their kids or genuinely completely burned out by the mole of responsibility that comes with becoming a parent. But that’s a topic for another day.

When drawing conclusion for this blog article the main challenge I faced was striking a balance between maintaining an hopeful outlook for the future without losing sight of the daily challenges we’re facing.
I found myself divided and  couple of question popped into my head: are we doomed? Can we find a silver lining or a full factory reset of society is needed? It seems a bit extreme but we’re moving at such speed that’s it’s hard to tell we’d be able to pull the e breaks before we hit the guardrails.

Overall, a realignment is overly due, change is possible but it must start from us. We can heal by accepting and loving ourselves.
Only by acknowledging our flaws can we work on them, smooth out the edges while preserving our true nature.