I have spent the last 4 years sequestered away from this march towards an all digital, all the time, society. While everyone was texting, and sexting, facebooking and twittering, I was immunized from that by a thick Cedar bush.
Everyday I try to ignore one more article instructing me on how statistically my teeth are not white enough, or that at 46 and unemployed I’m doomed in this recessive job market. All the negativity I can possibly digest is alive and well and itching to be front and centre, instructing me on how out of sync I am.
It is the high-wire act of balancing what I need with what I want, that has defined my current desires. Today stability is more important, and just the sheer joy of once again to have a life I can call my own is really all that I desire.
To be alone in this digital and ditzy ritzy world is rather disheartening though. With everyone’s eyes to the screen, fingers busily chit-chating with absent friends, I wonder at how the physical has become rather insignificant, and replaced by an artificial reality. I am alone in a way completely unique to the 21st century – I am alone both online, as well as off-line. I have no mobile phone, I haven’t text a living soul in 5 years, I have never used Instagram, nor have I ever tweetered {except via a computer}. The only people who are facebook friends with me are folks I have actually (for the most part) met in the flesh. I am an anomaly I suppose.
To have someones undivided attention today is a rare thing. So, the only guarantee of happiness one can expect is that which you create yourself. I find myself therefore within this digital love-in at complete odds with many of my peers. Wanting things that some don’t see as valuable, or striving for goals many see no profit in. Walking in the direction that I am led, rather than being dragged around by media-hype and viral memes. They are a white wash, these wireless waves, and just not an essential component of my future happiness. It is that lesson that has changed my course, and what finds me instead not looking for love in a digital world, but rather looking for self-love in a dialogue from within.
In response to the Weekly Writing Challenge: Love in the 21st Century
by PaulaB 
This was an enjoyable read. I sympathise with the sentiment.
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Thank you
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The digital age… meh. We weren’t missing anything without it. I do have a slight obsession with Instagram, less so with Facebook. I guess it’s a love/hate relationship. There are benefits, there are minuses. I love hearing of people who are still relatively “pure.” For some reason, it is comforting. :)
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I’ve become rather addicted to FB. Not playing games or that nonsense, but rather as a newsfeed, and a place to keep in touch with friends and family. Oddly enough, the majority of them are all baby boomers. While the big CEO’s are trying to cast around for the non-existent richs of the youth market, they are completely ignoring this LARGE group who LOVE the interactive, community aspect of Facebook. They can post photos of their grandbabies, recipes, jokes, organizations they like, lost pets. “Still relatively pure”…I can honestly say that no one has called me “relatively pure”, in quite sometime. LOL…. ;-) I suppose that is one thing to be proud of.
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:)
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