Listen to the noise in the silence

What I've noticed the most since the lockdown, is not the silence in the streets or shops, but the noise inside my head and inside my world.

​ Emails, social media accounts, logins, clutter that fills up my head - and with no good reason.

This noise is exhausting. I don't know about you, but I have to clear the junk from my email every day, the notifications on social media interrupt our daily activities, but more important it takes my time away from my inner world, time with others and time with the Earth.

And, it's designed that way.

The Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma explores how very unethical the platforms are and how they tap into our psychological weaknesses in order to manipulate us. We are being gamed by A.I. and it's changing our behaviour. It is essential viewing, for everyone.

This morning I deleted Twitter, Pinterest and Linked In. I culled hundreds of photographs from my Facebook and started a friendship and pages cull...again. I joined Facebook to connect with a girl I met when we were exchange students. We had lost contact in the transition from letters, to email. On the way, I discovered other treasured people who had made an impact on my life in one way or another. Then I started adding pages of things to follow, and soon my news feed was so noisy with advertising of one thing or another, the politics of one side or another and the increasing vitriol dripping from people's comments. I soon stopped seeing my friends and updates on their lives. It started to become a drain on my mental health and my perception of the world.

I wish I could just delete Facebook, particularly since they have started a conscientious censorship programme, but my business and many of my logins to external sites are tied to my Facebook account. I'm not sure how to extricate myself from it. It's toxic. What started as something so innocent as staying in touch with loved ones has turned into a pinboard of hate, contempt and disconnection, of humans turning on each other like wild animals.

I feel very much like my sense of self is outside of myself. Let me explain. One of my most dearest friends had a serious car accident and afterwards, she said it was like her soul had been thrown out of her body, she just felt disconnected. That is how social media makes me feel, like my "self" is somehow OUTSIDE of myself. I have become disconnected, I'm already "uploading" to the cloud as Elon Musk wants, but I don't want that. I like being human. I like being me.

The irony of this is not lost on me; after all my business mission is to bring about connection to self, others and the Earth. And here I am, feeling so very disconnect and discombobulated because I keep choosing to put myself out into the world, just like this blog, as if I can find who I am by seeking OUTSIDE of who I am.

I am tempted to delete all of my social media, including my business pages and my website and start all over again, with conscious intention of the world I want to create as an extension of myself. Maybe that's it, maybe this has been an experiment in self-exploration, to get me to this point, where I finally have come back to self by losing myself.

I'm sure if you have read this far, you probably get it.

If you don't, don't worry, one day you will.

I can consciously create what I really want for the world that we deserve, one filled with love, compassion, ecological protection and teamwork, so can you.

In love,

Alyssa

©Alyssa Curtayne, 2020

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