In the open seas…
I feel lost online and it’s not like I don’t have a presence. It feels like too much. Multiple social media accounts, online businesses, ‘creator’ and ‘career’ support platforms etc etc., pedalling myself, my skills and art.
The reality perhaps, is only a few, thin lines. Like the Mycorrhizal network that grows cell by cell beneath our feet, post by post our web grows ever larger. Each like or view, each second of attention clocked and watched, adding data point to data point, recorded and monified. Others attention mirrored back to you, satisfying a modern pyschological need, whilst driving the algorithms in a neverending loop.
Extrapolate by five billion or so other souls.
I’m both fascinated and disturbed by evolving human technology today. The usefulness and brilliance of many of our inventions are without doubt. The rapid pace of computing power and machine-learning, the impact on traditional economies and employment, how we interact and relate to each other, all upended within a few short decades of my lifetime. What next is to come?
Questions now play in my mind, around the future realities of metaverses. We are provided the vision of worlds in which our imaginations are our only limits. We can meet others from across the world, sharing cultures and transforming the notion of a global society. Yet, already these platforms are seemingly adhering to the old models of capitalism, elitism and exclusivity. How and where does our ailing living world fit in? How will it be, to walk within the digital rendering? Will we eventually forget how to walk?
I am an artist. I create art for no purpose other than to bring into being what I must. My perception and lifetime coalesce into form. I think throughout the process and leave open interpretation to serve the process of thinking in others. Art, in all its forms, is so much a conduit for human truths. My truths revolve around wonder.
What lies beyond my timelines? Out there are millions of other opinions and ideas, cultural norms, insights and beliefs. All out of reach and yet only just behind a veil of computing curation. I want to breathe in the depth and breadth of human culture and creativity. There can be joy in the memes and ticktok flippery that tickles so many, but I want more. Daily, I detach further from the banality of my feed. The connections I seek cannot be found there.
Online spaces are skewed towards popularity, in turn feeding further mass interaction. The dark corners of the web can be avoided well enough and advertising ignored if you are strong. To come across the real knowledge and hidden gems is harder. The powerful tools of social networks, can be used to coordinate and rally in times of need. More often than not though, they feel like overwhelming noise.
My beautiful friends, those I have held in real life, add their submissions, post by post. Only some find my eyes. Only those deemed interesting and aligned, the most likely to coax the likes and attention from me. We swirl together in our echochamber. They know they have all my love anyway. For my friends do know they are loved.
I’ve played a stupid game for years, one where I can ‘friend’ others who play and we can gift each other items. These new ‘friends’ are people from well beyond my algorithm and their opinions shudder like arrows. I am quietly entranced, not daring to respond. Trying to read and comprehend their worlds, opposite to mine in the conflict du jour during those moments. In time, they disappear quietly too.
Language is a barrier, although tools exist to help these, their accuracy is debatable and many are in the infancy stages of development. Quick now, before the languages disappear completely.
I use what tools I can to learn something new. I’m always learning something new, but spread ever more thinly as I try to keep pace. On the horizon is the future, the one that my children will live. I feel like my Mum watching us grow into a digital world, when we once played snake on the Nokia, texting liberally letter by letter.
Hypnotised now by blue light, I find I am fighting to clear my mind and clarify life’s purpose. A picture here, some writing there, a video about sustainability, create a collection of NFTs, more writing and another picture. Fighting for a cause from behind a screen, liking, disliking, pleading for the same from others. Ways to express myself or not. In amongst all the noise, I no longer believe in the relevance of the masses online. All our voices chime back towards ourselves.
I know this text feels rambling, that’s because it is. Trains of thought are not linear. Humans hold opinions and notions like chaotic space, the edges of one dissolving into another. A lost mind, or better put, an overly distracted mind, finds too much interest in the noise. Rabbit holes are everywhere, waiting to deviate you from the tasks and paths.
My life’s achievement needs to be building the home and growing the garden, which my family can call a base. To achieve a sense of security and roots. I must work within the parameters of society, and try to a point. Money is needed, therefore employment has to be achieved. Instead, much of my time is given to the community in a variety of voluntary forms. My people know they are loved too.
People do have power. They hold it in their hearts fearlessly when confronted by direct difficulties. Generally, we don’t have much wealth. Its been sucked up and stored safely offshore. We have been sold the line that without wealth, we don’t have power. To a degree that plays out. The shame of poverty hides in plain sight, it is easy to walk past the person on the street as they sleep. But, in its entirety, people do hold power and must be empowered by each other.
As I have written, I am now filled with more questions and more thoughts. Conclusions are impossible in this fluid world, with its hardships and troubles, heartbreaks micro and macro, playing out and then replayed, repeated and shared. Victories and successes can feel small, but they are not. Humanity is both beautiful and destructive. So many discoveries are happening and knowing how each might transform our planet is impossible, with each connecting and impacting on others. We are one.
