Notes on Brain Melt

 I sat down here at the desk with the full intention of diving into this blog and tackling something, anything, that would perhaps exercise the ol' noggin muscle and get the digits tappin. 

What happened instead was a near-instant diversion of time and energy into social media, which quickly grabbed my attention, beat it into submission, and refused to let me go outside for a little fresh air for a full fucking hour. The fact that I'm sitting here now rap-a-tap-tapping something into the machine is still a bit confounding, as I have no real clue how I evaded my captor and made it here before today's time was completely pissed away into oblivion. 

Social media is tedious and boring. Yet, it's so incredibly easy to get pulled and locked into the spiraling nightmare of owns and bitching and sanctimony and nothingness, that it's a wonder half the population hasn't simply short-circuited and keeled over. Well, maybe it has. Maybe the endless b-roll of gotcha video clips and "I called it" hot takes has, in fact, done what it was designed to do, utilizing our weaknesses and collectively declining attention spans against us by locking us into a 24/7 marketing death loop disguised as something... useful.

I guess it is just a honey trap, luring people into the void with the promise of something gratifying but which never quite delivers, well, anything. Drip drip drip. Feed me my news bits and hot takes and viral videos but don't really give me anything enriching because that's not really what this is about anyway. It's about holding your attention long enough to see 14 ads about potato chips and mutual funds. Oh yeah, there are people shouting at other people about how stupid they are, or what sort of flogging they deserve for missing detail a(3) in the latest Proud Boys sedition trial court filing, but that's just window dressing. Opinions and browbeating and manufactured conflict disguised as wisdom surrounded by ads designed to keep you from doing something, anything, that has a meaningful connection to you and the space you inhabit.

And as I sit, critiquing this madness, I find myself fighting the urge to flip back into the doom-scrolling death spiral and sort through comment sections on posts to gauge reaction and feel superior or right or, I don't know, somehow justified in what I think and believe. Like 10 minutes or 2 hours of combing through Tweets or, gawd help me, mind-numbing friend updates and griping on Facebook (sorry, friends!) is somehow going to make me feel better about... anything? 

No. It always has a negative effect on my mood. Nothing good comes from it. Whether it's simply wasting valuable time staring into a blue screen, absorbing the sheer negativity these platforms pump into the ether, raging about how stupid even smart people come across on Twitter, or actually gaslighting and doubting myself based on some random's hot take on government or Joe Biden or racism or whatever, nothing and I mean NOTHING good punches through the smog and improves my outlook.

And yet, I'm fully aware that just as soon as I wrap this up and check up on the kiddo, I'll be right back in that brain-draining wasteland seeking validation on something I don't even understand and feeling that sweet sweet drip drip drip that only comes from total hellscape immersion. 

I just finished End of Watch by Stephen King. The book follows the evolution of a maniac killer-turned-near-lifeless husk who develops the ability to enter people's minds and play around with the levers for a while. After a while of manipulating a person's consciousness, who the victim is or was begins to melt away. The killer sweeps aside what makes them them and essentially erases those memories and experiences as he assumes control.

THAT'S what this latest foray into social media felt like, like some invisible hand reached into my skull and began wiping away not only my self-control, but also any sense of my surroundings, who I was, etc. I was supplanted by something else entirely. It was in control. And I'd imagine a similar feeling grips people across the globe every day, pushing the individual aside and putting someone else in the driver's seat.

Oh, wait, TV already did that. Maybe social media just learned from TV's mistakes and made the upgrades needed to create something foolproof. 

I TOLD YOU this would be bad. It still is. That's the exercise. I feel like I'm writing this in a rush today. 

Til Tomorrow