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< | The self-made identity lie | >
> | The identity lie induced by the Parasite | | | -- By NataliaNegret - 22 Oct 2021 | |
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< | Being conscious | >
> | We post in our virtual canvas, thinking that we purposely and consciously decide the content of those posts, but our mental capacity does not drive those actions. The parasite induces them. The parasite give us tools to share, to edit pictures, and to post, but the underlying reality is that we post the only thing we own: our time. | | | | |
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< | My self-made identity has recently puzzled me. The "self-made self" is a problem common to those who, like me, grew up tightened to social media. It is self-made because we post in our virtual canvas what we purposely and consciously decide to post. We exclude from those posts our negative emotions (at least most of us do), our health crisis, our routinary activities. The content worthy of posting relates to our social life (in restaurants, parties, and clubs), our trips, pets, and hobbies (exercising, cooking, and snapping pictures of an Agnes Martin in the Whitney). In the end, we post what we own: our time. | >
> | Nonetheless, our time is relative. We are drained of freedom of decision every time we click, swipe, and accept terms and conditions from the “free” services we use on the internet. I want to emphasize the quotations marks that I placed besides free. The latter, as we tend to think that we decide over what we post and with whom we share and interact. The reality is different. We lie to ourselves when we say that we control our virtual personalities. | | | | |
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< | The questions and the preliminary answers | >
> | Who the parasite acts to induce the lie of control | | | | |
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< | My reflection started when I realized that I had opened my hobbies, friendships, and family to acquaintances, classmates, and random people I've met once or twice. In this opening, they have access to my library, my siblings, my random walks in the park because I allow them to. They know I like Agnes Martin and Borges because I share paintings and quotes. They know if I cut my hair if I take a plane. | >
> | The parasite is the only controlling who we are. We feed the parasite with our posts - even when we overthink their content-. We give the parasite control over our capacity to decide. The parasite knows our steps, knows our fertility cycle (it even predicts it), knows our sleep cycle, and suggests what to eat, buy, and like. All these “suggestions” are inductions. | | | | |
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< | I believe "my followers" wouldn't describe me as an over-poster. I take my role as content curator of my virtual life seriously. In other words, I waste my time curating the life I want to share. And I curate for whom? That's the question worth asking. It might be for those who benefit from my engagement (social media platforms, stores, advertisement), those who follow me and want a glimpse of my life, the other parts of me who want to remain in the dark. The paradox here is that every time I feed my virtual profile, I'm depriving myself of the ability to keep things private. | >
> | I have realized that even when we reflect on our virtual accounts, controlling and limiting our virtual content Is not enough. In other words, we waste our time trying to curate the life we want to share. We are not curating or deciding. In the end, it is the parasite that grows. It is asfixitiang roots over our brains. | | | | |
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< | And I ask myself: What is the purpose of keeping things private? It buys you time to reflect, think and create. Privacy protects how the piece of information about you has been obtained. In Marmor's words: "it is about the how, not the what, that is known about you". The latter, as "our ability to control the ways in which we present ourselves to others is inherently limited". From that stance, privacy gives us time, and therefore protects time, on when to disclose or reveal something. The underlying issue with social media is that we are the curators of our profiles, and in that filtration journey, we lost our ability to choose how our time (and life) is being used. | >
> | We are not curating for those who benefit from our engagement (social media platforms, stores, advertisement) or those who follow us and want a glimpse of our life. The paradox here is that every time we feed my virtual profile, we deprive ourselves of the ability to keep things private. And with this, once again, making bigger and stronger parasites.
I ask myself: What is the purpose of keeping things private? And my answer is that privacy buys me time to reflect, think and create. Privacy protects how the piece of information about you has been obtained. Marmor's words: "it is about the how, not the what, that is known about you." The latter, as "our ability to control [how] we present ourselves to others is inherently limited."
From that stance, privacy gives us time, and therefore protects time, on when to disclose or reveal something. The underlying issue with the parasite is that it is the curator of our profiles, and in that filtration journey that we gave rise to, we have lost our ability to choose how others are using our time (and life). | | | A waste of time and a waste of rights | |
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> | Feeding the profiles consumes time. We post because the likes, comments, and virtual interactions affirm or reinforce the virtual being we choose to share with our selected community. We believe we have control over what and who we share. Still, the reality is that every click diminishes freedom, extinguishes privacy, and deprives us of the only thing we own: time. | | | | |
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< | Feeding the profiles consumes time. We post because the likes, comments, and virtual interactions affirm or reinforce the virtual being we choose to share with our selected community. We believe we have control over what and who we share. Still, the reality is that every click diminishes freedom, extinguishes privacy, and deprives us of the only thing we own: time. The outcome is our inability to reflect and pause because our consciousness of time is limited by immediacy, neediness, and over-exposure. And the worst part is that the idea of being infinite humans, in the microcosmic stance, is vanished by the constant of self-reinvention instead of self-expansion. | >
> | The outcome is our inability to reflect and pause because our consciousness of time is limited by immediacy, neediness, and over-exposure. And the worst part is that the idea of being infinite humans, in the microcosmic stance, is vanished by the constant of self-reinvention instead of self-expansion. | | | | |
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< | One step away from Nirvana | >
> | The parasite is playing the game of “letting us choose.” What we have to realize is that every choice makes the parasite stronger. The parasite is using us to increase profits, is triggering our decisions in the way that serves the parasite’s ends. The verbs to share and post, which are the core of the interactions on the platforms, withered integration, insertion, and social construction. We handed our privacy in exchange for a fake sense of control. We gave our time, memories, and the idea of integrity in exchange for a false self-made identity that lacks authenticity and freedom—a self-imposed view by the parasite. | | | | |
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< | Humanity has dealt with the eternity/infinity question since we began to articulate ideas. The question about being eternal is related to the aim of self-expanding. The latter, as our nature has always been limited by time. We start to die the day we are born. To overcome this fatality, people used to write, paint, have children, and teach. Today, to be remembered, "eternal," we rely on a third party that might shut down, or shut or profile down, and drags all our posted "memories" with it. I'm not saying the futilities I see, and post on social media are worth being eternal; I aim to reflect on the fact that our approach to eternity is rotten. | >
> | Humanity has dealt with the eternity/infinity question since we articulate ideas. To overcome the fact that our nature is limited by time, people used to write, paint, have children, and teach. By switching the idea of “eternity” towards platforms that hold and “save” our memories, our approach to eternity is rotten. To lay down this, I want to recall when Don Quixote found out, in his conversation with Sansón Carrasco, that his adventures were a topic of discussion among the students at the University of Salamanca. For him, being public, discussed, and remembered was an outcome, not a decisive purpose. He didn't act to be a topic. By the course of his actions, he became a character and, as a result, a subject of discussion. The lions, the windmills, and the galley slaves' adventures were public, and some read those actions as insanity, others as geniality. | | | | |
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< | Life's worth knowing about were imagined, created, and transmitted. The character had an incidence on what was being said about him, but he did not have the chance to curate the life he wanted to share. To lay down this, I want to recall when Don Quixote found out, in his conversation with Sansón Carrasco, that his adventures were a topic of discussion among the students at the University of Salamanca. For him, being public, discussed, and remembered was an outcome, not a decisive purpose. He didn't act to be a topic. By the course of his actions, he became a character and, as a result, a subject of discussion. The lions, the windmills, and the galley slaves' adventures were public, and some read those actions as insanity, others as geniality. Today, we aim to control with the curating process our self-made online identity and, in general, how the public reads our actions. | >
> | Our desire for control shows that our aim to be remembered is vague because we rely solely on feeding the parasite. If we aim to change this reality, we need to cut ties with the parasite. Disable our social media accounts, the trackings the apps have over our lives. We need to stop posting on those platforms that instrumentalize our time to deprive us of individuality. | | | | |
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< | Final thoughts | | | | |
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< | As stated before, relying on Marmor is unlikely to impose our view on how others read our self-made identity. Moreover, this desire for control shows that our aim to be remembered is vague because we rely solely on feeding our virtual profiles. The drive to be recognized, which might take the name of immortality, eternity, was a dream worth living before social media created identities. The verbs to share and post, which are the core of the interactions on the platforms, withered integration, insertion, and social construction. We handed our privacy in exchange for a fake sense of control. We handed our time, memories, and the idea of integrity in exchange for a self-made identity that lacks authenticity and freedom. | | | | |
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> | (PREVIOUS DRAFT COMMENTS) | | |
But diffuse and lengthy as it is, this is only half the story. |
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