Not enough, but way too much

A wise person once said that the most dangerous thing one can do is be perceived by another human.

One hundred years ago, the stakes were both much higher, and much lower. Nothing was documented to the degree that it is today, though anyone alive would find this to be an obvious statement. It is, however, worth mentioning that over the last 100 years, the human race has likely experienced more advancement in this blink of a century than it did for Millenia prior. And yet our brains have remained largely the same, if not unrecognizably or just slightly more adaptable than they were generations before.

People my age - and by people my age, I mean anyone who is between the ages of 26 and 42 in 2023 - are largely in crises. We are inundated constantly with visual confirmation of what we could be, what we could be doing, what we definitely don’t want to be doing, who we wish we were, what our body proportions should be, what our voice should sound like, how we should walk, talk, or use our vacation days. We’re ashamed of stupid things that no one would have thought about decades previous, like if our hair dryer and vacuum cleaners are both made by Dyson.

While we don’t yet know the true effects of it, even a well-adjusted adult, provided they haven’t resigned to living under a rock, would understand that life has largely become how we portray it on a screen. And while we know this is not actually true, the access that we achieve by how we position our life - just like a major corporation - is very real. It has made all of us marketers in the sense that it does not completely matter what your life is like. Our participation in the social economy is defined by how you make it look.

One hundred years ago, you had to live your truth. There was no veil of perfection or beauty that could exist between you and the real world beyond a portrait that you might develop a wrinkle line in the process of its painting. People were what they were, and the differential of classes was far more obvious. And while there were plenty of horrible things that came along with people only having access to be seen as exactly what they were - and perceived exactly how someone else wanted to perceive them - there was also more varied access and an inability to know “what else is out there” throughout the experience economy that allowed us to live within our means, both financially and emotionally.

Today, we make assumptions about people’s lives. We have no idea how they funded the yacht or ended up on the helicopter. All we know is that they have access to a yacht and a helicopter. And I don’t. So what’s wrong? How should I be marketing myself to the rest of the world to “manifest” a version of myself that’s worthy of a yacht and a helicopter? Ah, yes - an eating disorder! Selling drugs! Being a homemaker! NFTs! Excelling at work!

There are so many paths to this strange and fleeting definition of success that it would cause any thinking person to disassociate. And our speculation of how another achieved that perceived success might motivate us to work hard - or it might create a downward spiral of depression, weight gain, self-isolation and substance use. It’s really a gamble. And yet abstinence from this psychological scrolling warfare is akin to not participating in the actual economy.

I would say that avoiding social media, but not the internet as a whole, is an option - but the overwhelm doesn’t end with Instagram. The amount of news, both good and bad, that we have access to the moment we land on Google - the demands or celebrations or monotony of whatever lies in your inbox - in reality, it’s all too much. And compartmentalizing any of it is a recipe for dropping the ball. And yet, we cannot be expected to process all of it.

There’s a boomer trope - or a trope we millennials have assigned to the perspective of the boomer generation - that “depression didn’t used to be a thing.”

While actually believing such a thing is nothing if not a defense mechanism, itis probably true that not getting minute by minute updates of school shootings, domestic and foreign atrocities, the state of the housing market, a trending video of something without thumbs playing an accordion, the next update being pushed out to your autonomous vehicle that might turn it into a tool for terrorism, and how many people lined up for a super cool Taylor Swift poster printed in some foreign country with no OSHA laws or regard for human life, would help us, if nothing else, feel a bit more calm.

That being said, I’d like a lump of coal for Christmas. A great big one, that I can live under for all of 2024. I’ll come out when my Chat GPT bot can handle all of my worldly interactions for me.

Remember, outsourcing is the key to success in both business and in emotional bandwidth. May your supply chain be medicated. - SBB