I do see the irony of this post, being that it is an online blog, but want to address minimalism online. I am a little bit (A LOT) convinced that the internet is just an imaginary cure to all of our fear, that doesn’t really cure anything. Like, we have a fear so we take the online aspirin, but then it wears off and we need another one. Minimalism in any area is just stripping down the illusions we have created to see reality for what it is.
The reality is that we stare at screens most of the day, and when we are not staring at screens we are wanting to pick up our phone and stare at a screen. Sometimes we stare at a screen while watching another screen. This is (I think) what everyone is talking about with The Social Dilemma on Netflix which I did not see but from what I gather it’s specifically about the dangers of social media addiction. But we do this with other screens, internet in general and computers at work and phones and TV, video games, even Zoom is a screen, I mean we have become the humans in Wall-e (which I saw on a mighty screen).
I recently deactivated Facebook when I realized I checked it like 20 times a day, and I do feel calmer but also WAY more anxious now that I don’t have a reason to check my phone 20 times a day, to pretend I have a social life I do not actually have because I have been alone in the desert for a year. My social life, in reality, consists of a lot of lizards.
That has been difficult to accept, but easier when I realize… hey, at least I know where I stand. I check a hole in the driveway twice a day to see if my friend Leroy is out. Leroy is a tarantula.
What I was doing before was way worse than talking to lizards and tarantulas, getting emotionally hooked into stuff on a screen. Tears, anger, FOMO, paranoia, frustration over racism and politics, fake relationships and debates I wasn’t even participating in. Holy stromboli, that is a problem. I’d rather cry because I have PMS or something, and get angry because you know, a car almost hit me walking up Bell Rock Blvd. Not over a comment someone left on my YouTube channel, or a novel-sized DM (don’t actually read those, not into ego bukkake).
I still find myself wanting to check something that isn’t there. It’s like a ghost limb. Sometimes I try replacing it with IG or YouTube or Snapchat, but then I’m like….No. Go out and talk to the lizards. Maybe some day I’ll be back in the human race for real, but today, I am not and I’m not going to cover that up with an internet aspirin.
Abby Harmony 