Moving forward in a backwards world
Forwards, backwards, and psyche wards
FOREWORD: All of this is nonsense and I don’t know anything. Enjoy.
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For words to have meaning, one must understand the language being spoken.
To understand the language being spoken, one must know the nuances of said language.
”Forward” is a word I associate with progress. To another, forward may mean a place to move towards. In the case of etymology, it means a direction in front of. To the fearful, it may mean a scary unknown.
Four words in one word, creating four worlds.
When I say a backwards world, I mean a world that rewards those for questionable things. In the west, we seem to applaud those who can take on and manage the most amount of stress without breaking, rather than those who move freely, doing what they love, without any incentive of power, pay, or status redefining their path and passion.
We love our artists, our musicians, and our creatives- yet the celebrity status and online avatar has taken on more meaning towards our perceived image of them, rather than their transcendent art. There is so much to consume that we can donate 12 hours in a day to the devices that we feel connected to these artists through, losing ourselves in the paranoia of online presence.
The other side of the coin is creatives who loathe being recognized for their work, and deny any form of applaud as not to taint their creative ego. God forbid someone actually sees them.
COVID was our introduction to this hyper-consuming world.
It was the first celebrity to spread worldwide. Everyone knew its name.
It served as the inspiration to millions, following in its shadow to become the next viral sensation.
To escape, one used to go on their devices. Now, people must embrace a slow walk in the sun to get away from what’s online.
We live in a world that makes you work half of your waking day, only to return to a stress-filled movie to take the edge off. Perhaps a quick social media argument or political post to really relax.
While we are physically adults, it seems our minds haven’t left the crib yet. So many people depend on the pacifiers that we call technology to occupy their time with. How else can somebody wait 5 minutes at a coffee shop without exploding in rage?
This backwards world we call society is the greatest promoter of keeping us in fight or flight. We live in an environment that prompts an addiction to it.
We have “AI” (writer voice turned off a minute for this rant - we all know there still is no such thing as true AI right? LLMS are not AI, they are algorithms meant to feed you what you want to hear and feel, thus contributing to the wall around one’s mental prison. We just call it AI because it implies the future, or possibly just to confuse people.)
We have an endless show of drama called ‘news’ that has hooked us since whichever season we got personally attached to an idea we liked, or more likely something or someone we hated.
The rate at which we are divulging culturally into a frantic state of fight or flight shows through the most technologically dependent people. Take away their coping mechanism for one day, and watch the withdrawals exacerbate.
This is why the workaholic never retires - stopping has become so unknown to them that the known world of working oneself to death becomes more comforting than the notion of having nothing to do.
We have all become workaholics in one way or another at some point- only this work is not a physical one. It is purely emotional and mental.
We work to contain ourselves for others, to stuff down our authentic feelings. We fear what others might say, or worse, what we might say to others.
We work to not feel. We work to not think. We work to continue struggling. We despise true rest.
So- how do we move forward in a backwards world?
This is what I have been pondering lately, and I’d love to open the floor to you as well, since this question is both an individual and a worldwide one.
I believe the way to move forward is ironically to stop moving.
To do nothing. Waste that precious time we avoid having more of.
I used to thing progress was the goal- now I’ve realized true progress is having no goal.
No goal means all of one’s needs are already met. One may want more “things”, but what they truly want is what they believe those things will give them. Surely, having more money will relieve you and make you happy, just look at billionaires! On second thought, maybe having more of something won’t give you anything that truly matters.
The goal is no goal. The goal is complete and utter satisfaction, here and now.
We place it out there in the chaos of the backwards world, thinking we will strike gold soon enough- even though every previous achievement did nothing to satisfy that urge for more.
If we can allow ourselves to be completely satisfied with what we already have, or to put it more bluntly, who we already are, there is no need to involve ourselves in this everlasting landscape of survival.
We may have to continue to work, or support a sick family member. We will continue to observe the worldly atrocities at our fingertips. But, we will be in a new world where the black hole of this outer world can no longer pull us in.
Despite todays tumultuousness, I hope you can find even a second to feel that feeling you have been longing. What is the feeling beneath your ultimate desire? It may feel like a lie to your mind to embrace it now, but doing so is an investment that can only compound in one’s inner world the more it is generated from within.
Our satisfaction will move us forward, together, more than the competitive drive and constant escapism our ego can never seem to relinquish. Our happiness will allow us to share the warmth of our souls.
Why should we have to wait any longer to feel these things? Maybe in feeling them, we will bring forth the desires that represent them to us now.
Godspeed.