Social Media is a Big Business and We’re the Cogs in Their Wheel
Is this what it means to be human in the 21st century?
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I sometimes lie awake at night thinking about all the ways I can continue to balance my emotional self in the 21st Century. I think about who I was ten years ago…twenty years ago...thirty years ago. You get the picture. I’m not reminiscing about this woman. After all, I’ve grown and discovered so many positive tools I can use that have helped me become a happy healthy well-balanced individual, but I do think about what it was like BSM. What this felt like.
What did it feel like before Social Media?
Because we all feel, what it is we feel, we will each have a different reaction to this question. What I feel will not be what you feel.
Therefore, in trying to simplify an argument I’m making for the need for emotional balance, I will tell you that BSM I felt relatable. I felt at ease in my skin. I am 59 years old so I was without Social Media for a pretty long time, and let's just say I often feel like a struggling teen again when it comes to Social Media. I’ve felt wrecked because I will perceive myself as lacking relatability, but I’m lucky I have the tools from my past to help ease me out of this feeling. What are we doing to our children who don’t have these skills? What are we doing to ourselves if we don’t remember them?
Before Social Media, I felt heard, listened to, and acknowledged. It never occurred to me, as a pretty well-rounded woman with many friends, enjoyable hobbies, and a general sense of ease in the world, that I was not relatable. I might have struggled quite a bit in the longing department of life, but that’s another story.
What is relatability and why the need for me to discuss it now?
Relatability, to me, is the sense of being physically and emotionally grounded in a sea of constant motion.
Earth moves. We move. Seasons change. Birds migrate. There is this ever-constant cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The circle is evident, but what we don’t do well, at all, is pay attention to the way we are aligning with Earth’s motion. We ignore this motion, remain ungrounded, and in our search for some form of “footing” on this planet, we…
