I am re-reading Eckhart Tolles "A new Earth". I highly recommend you to read it if you have missed it. It is an amazing work of spiritual philosophy (not a new philosophy perhaps, but new metaphors made for a modern world)... a bit heavy at first, but worth the struggle. It works for religious people as well as spiritually interested non-religious people. Above all it shows you another dimension in life that we so much forget in our society. The dimension of space, silence and divinity, to be accurate ;)
Speaking about dimensions, I have removed one from my life lately, and that is social media. No Facebook or Instagram for more than a month now. I have been active on social media at least five years; with some updates every week, and daily interactions. I am still checking in sometimes to see whats happening with my friends, like a digital ghost, reading but not interacting and no sharing. It was hard at first to ignore (and be ignored). I felt first like a very unfriendly, non-caring person, letting people down. And later invisible, almost dead. And after that: Relief.
And now I see what I needed a break from: The ego on the Internet (in Tolles terms). Like self designed avatars of our real selves we interact with each other, through our egos. (Probably you have to read Tolle to get this). And then there is the like-algoritm; everything is always measured in one way of the other, it triggers our most basic needs for love and confirmation, and easily creates an addiction, and just like money, it is countable, concrete, worthless when it really matters... and you never get enough. And then there is the the filtering system on Facebook that gives you news and ads based on what you already "like" and thereby just confirm your world perspective. I once hoped Facebook was a good place for sharing thoughts, but I think its are getting worse and worse.. And at last: The over-connection: You just can't keep up that many relationships so communication gets superficial, included with people you have a much deeper connection with.
Some day I guess I will go back, because I miss sharing good stuff. But i don't know when, it´s quite nice to be here on the outside.
(Hey! Don't believe that all this has anything to do with the fact that I live a totally uninteresting life, and that I can't hide my age at photos anymore. Nothing at all.. )
