There are a lot of things that I would like to believe is true and adopt as a core principle. Like this well known quote by Roman Emperor and Philosopher Marcus Aurelius.
“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
I think this is really good and I've seen paraphrased versions of it enter my various social media feeds during my time as an internet user. Yet I still find that it's a hassle to actually integrate it into an actual principle for me to follow.
Partly because I'm not sure it's supposed to be, forgive me but I have not read Meditations where the quote is from so I don't know the full context of the quote, for all I know it could just be a sarcastic statement meant to show whoever's saying it didn't read. But also because so many parts of the modern world are being designed to get opinions out of me whether I have them or not.
Let me first just paint out a hypothetical situation for you.
You see a tweet or post or whatever enter your feed on a social media site you use. You see it's got a lot of attention on it given the number of replies, retweets (or retweet equivalent) and likes. It's also not ratio'd (it has a decent number of all 3 markers of engagement) which means you know people are engaging with the tweet in earnest and not just making it the laughingstock of the day.
You might not react to that post or have much of an opinion and you just continue scrolling through your feed filled with other horrors. Then some time passes, you see the post you saw getting buzz get more buzz, so much so that it begins getting mainstream media coverage.
Suddenly you see people not just on the internet talking about it. Expressing their thoughts on it and what it says about society, and you feel like an outcast for not having an opinion so you make one up on the spot just to have it when asked.
Then that becomes internalized and you stick with that opinion because it's all you really have when engaging with that topic since you weren't really informed enough to form one properly in the first place. Any sort of slight reworking of it involves you having to be honest that you had no idea what you were talking about.
Which is bad, showing you aren't aware of everything ever in the age of a Google Reddit search idly living your pocket... that's bad, people might think you're cringe and dumb (harrowing!).
To clarify, that last sentence is purely satirical and played up for laughs. As outrageous as it is though I do wonder if it kinda scratches at why a lot of people strangely have opinions on any given thing at any given time.
That whole situation I just laid out is something I myself did for far too long with a ton of shit that went viral or were topics of the day. As pathetic as it is I need to admit I do it so I can stop doing it.
There's a good quote from a book I actually did read about human communication that said something along the lines of how humans usually only input information if it's something of interest to them or if they expect to have to output that information too (note: the original quote is in Japanese so I paraphrased and translated it).
I have to think the way I felt like I had to absorb everything that shows up on the almighty social media feed is because there is a part of me that expected it to be brought up later. It rarely ever does but, like, what if it did?!
Every viral thing becomes a topic of discourse now, not having an opinion (whether it affects or matters to you or not) might as well be exiling yourself to a uninhabited island. If you live the type of life where if you're having these unconscious thoughts in the first place you're likely a lonely loser who doesn't know how to talk to people without vague references to whatever the trend of the day is so you need to have as many references as possible.
It happens so quietly too. There are so many subtle ways social media sites use us to get us to waste as much time as we do on them and they're definitely not going to just tell us their secrets.
But it's all just so easy. You can even find opinions you can just copy and call yours right there on the site too, conveniently in the replies and quote tweets. Just grab one that's either the funniest or sounds the most confident in your head.
I have to imagine that this need to feel like one must have opinions on everything is why a lot of people also feel burnt out when using these sites, because that's a lot of useless junk you're wasting brainpower on. Or at least I've felt that way.
It's why I've reduced my social media accounts down to 3 and none of them are on my phone. I've kept the cumulative time I've spent on social media down to like an hour or so on my computer per day. As a result I haven't had nearly the same volume of garbage to scroll through for months and it's done quite well for me all things considered.
While I run the risk of missing out on new developments that interest me, that's mostly information I can still get by actually talking to people or using my computer at the end of the day with my allotted computer time (I feel like I'm back in 2004 and using my family computer). While general information that's important enough ends up on my radar anyway through archaic channels (there's this thing called a "newspaper").
At some point I might take things to extreme levels of indifference that I end up not caring about stuff that I probably should care about, but trying to decipher what's worthwhile and what's not is tough after I've burnt myself out and decided to just go with a "fuck it all" approach. Even more-so when I realized I can afford to not care about a lot of things.
But I'm human which means I do still have thoughts on things whether I want them or not. I think I'll end up in some weird middle zone and forever struggle to find the right balance. Maybe. I don't know. I don't have an answer, just opinions.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care.
