Life Beyond the Feed

Earlier this year I decided to take a few weeks off  of Facebook. I had begun to get very involved timewise and also emotionally with political themes.  I was also feeling overwhelmed by  a seemingly endless barrage of negative and often 'fake' news. So I gave up Facebook for a few weeks, and Quite a lot came up for me! I'm sharing my feelings, experiences and commentary. 

This is something that starts off as a kind of poem about Facebook,  and ends up being  a very interesting commentary and story that touches on many really powerful topics!  It's quite long so I will share this in parts.

DAY 1 

My mind is spinning
My mind littered and jam packed full
Of ideas, news, information, world wide all pervading news
A barrage of never ending terrible, horrible stories
An endless list of them
Just look away for a moment, and more they come

but one day my mind just breaks and says
no more!

DAY 2

What is real?
What is reality?
Where the f**k am I?
What am I doing?
Am I a part of this?
Am I just like the others?
Or did I wake up?
Can I see the truth?
Did I really get it?
Or am I just confused?

It’s all too much
We shouldn’t be seeing all this
It's not good for us
Whether you believe it or not
I can see why people wouldn’t want to believe the truth
It’s so risky
And so much harder
Do I even want to know the truth
Maybe its better to live my own truth
To get out, and jump
I’m ever more convinced that is the only way out
Do I even need to convince anyone but myself of that?

DAY 3

It's Day three off of Facebook. It is already more quiet in my mind.
But now I can feel all my own shadows lurking around
Playing tricks on me and making me feel so very overwhelmed with
Life Itself. 

To witness what is shown to me to be life, the stories of our time
Is too much to bare
The only way through it is to shut down into a zombie like awareness
Or to shut it off completely
I’m tired of being a powerless pawn
SO I shut it off!
Now I feel like I have to clear the debris of an Armageddon
From my mind, my body and soul
I’m totally polluted
My mind is awash with terrible things

Stuck in a negative loop of disillusion
I saw this coming
Now its time to heal
Everything
From within

DAY 4

It's like my mind cleared up a bit. It’s so nice to have some more free space in my head. I didn’t realize how much space all that stuff was taking up. I was getting more stressed out than I had known. Every FB post I had read was setting off a cascade of negative feelings that has been overwhelming me and making me feel despondent and crushed. Not even knowing for sure what was true and what was someone’s game to bring them their own gains. Now I don’t care already. True of false, I have already stopped caring. Because nothing I read made a difference. Nothing I read made a real difference. There was nothing I could do to fix it.. or even to know if it was even true or not. Now I am free from this heavy distraction. I am focusing instead on my inner world that is always talking to me, but I have not been listening. I’ve been distracting myself for so long and missing the real conversation that needs to be had. How am i? What is going on inside me? Am I ok? Why am I feeling like I am? I don’t feel good; I don’t feel good at all. And now I have only my own inner world to listen to I can say that this is my own stuff. I really don’t like how it feels, but at least now maybe I can do something about it. Now I can give it some attention. Now where do I start?

When I was a teenager, I had a different feeling. I was young, and I knew about all the things going on in the world. Not from the various things I read on the internet, but from talking with friends, and piecing together the things that I felt and knew to be true, and from the ideas and feelings that my friends had. We figured out a heck of a lot of stuff then. It felt good to know less about so many things that I know now. Such as the inequality of the world, the treatment of animals raised to feed the masses, the hatred of people based on their religion or location. I knew nothing of the deep corruption that held the status quo in place. I knew nothing of the trillions of dollars squandered in secret projects that serve only to encourage disharmony of the world. In those days, those people were the they’s of the world and I knew nor cared not of their role. Now they are us. They no longer feel so distant or unknown. It feels like their hands are around my throat, restricting the very air that I breathe; polluting the very air that I breathe. There is no escape it seems from the invisible claws that threaten to maul me if I say or do the wrong thing. There is this silent aggressor that’s got its grip on everything, silent but powerful. There is nothing like power that can control everything without being seen or known. There is no escaping something that you cannot see or know where it lies. There is no knowing of the truth when you can’t even say where the things you see and read came from. 

To be blind whilst having eyes that can permeate every part of the world is the ultimate paradox, and is extremely frustrating. To be able to see so far and wide, with such ease, and yet to know nothing for sure is a kind of torture that has very few resolutions. It tempts me to discard everything I already knew, to give up my own mind and to just shut down and avoid the whole story at all.

To be laughed at or ridiculed for having clear vision is a tragic thing to the soul. To be one of just a great minority who’s eyes are wide open and to see the obliterating truth, with so few others, is a frustration that is sometimes too great to bare. What is a man to do when faced with such vision, such courage, such determination to do something, and yet no idea what to actually do. When no one wants to see or take the responsibility, is it even worth trying. When I am ridiculed or laughed at for eating vegetables instead of mass tortured animals, it makes my head spin. When I saw that man in the supermarket casually grab the cheap factory farmed chicken eggs instead of the free range ones my mind puzzled in sorrow. Surely he knows. Or he knows but doesn’t want to know. He must have distracted himself so much that he’s not even questioning his daily actions. That must be it? Maybe people are just so distracted by mindless thoughts and overwhelming conflicting information that they chose to think nothing at all. Grab this, take that, eat whatever the tongue fancies in that moment. 

When I see someone with less, I want to give. That is my natural and most direct feeling and response. When I see someone suffering I want to help. That is my human nature. When I see suffering in the world, I want to do something about it; and I have been doing something! And yet even though I have done so much, it seems to have fallen to same place as those eggs. When I see other people ignore the suffering of their fellow souls be they mankind or any of the other animal that live here with us, a piece of me dies. A piece of my desire for good is eroded and it takes something special to fill it back. It takes stepping back and breathing in the light and the warmth from the never ending source. Thank God that is always there when I need it. Without that I would surely by an empty vessel, despondent and distracted and overwhelmed by all that is around me. 

So, I want to use this time to turn myself around inside. I need to forget that the rest of the world around me decided to give up and ignore the daily simple horrors around them. So what if they chose to turn away to the beggar who knows not what they will eat that day. Who knows how many are watching when I do squat down beside them with a caring eyes and give something to them. That man with the factory farmed eggs saw what I took from the top shelf. On some level he saw it, and on some level he knew. I can only keep being who I am and know that on some level that alone is enough. I cannot change anyone, and I do not want to either. I want them to change by themselves. That is the only way.

Om
to be continued...