The future will favor the unfazed.
Whether it's stories about UFOs, people being called "NPCs," or deepfaked voices and faces doing the demonic, diabolical, disinforming, and degrading, we're living in a time when reality can be said with your fingers making quotation marks.
The filters of social media apps have become aspirational DNA that some hope to acquire through surgery.
Places like Twitter exploit our automatic process of understanding, believing, and *then* disbelieving, triggering us into reacting and then feeling compelled to stay consistent with said reaction.
The Bardo of Buddhism, full of illusions, is now our everyday life.
And I believe the best way to handle it all is to approach the world like a native New Yorker seeing an adult crawl around on the subway floor in a rat costume: '... Yeah, where was I'.
How To Practice Mental Self-Defense
1) Remind Yourself That It's All Uncertain
When you hear something outlandish, alluring, or despicable, remind yourself "not sure" or "maybe - maybe not."
The odds are you'll be closer to the truth by doing so.
And if you're not closer to the truth, building the practice of reminding yourself about everything's uncertainty will at least bring you closer to peace.
When you continually see how often your hunches are wrong, it not only humbles you, but it embeds a traffic sign into your mind telling you to slow your speculation down, helping you sidestep regret.
Give it a shot.
2) Ask Yourself Who Benefits From You Believing This
Whether it's aliens, or the latest rumor nestled inside a trending topic page, ask yourself who wins when you believe ____.
There's sadly a lot of people with ill-intentions interested in pushing just about any narrative if it lines their wallet with powdered wigs.
Often, we are not the party that will benefit. We'll be left with regretful impulse-posts showcasing what happens to human emotions and peace of mind when we're given the chance to instantly communicate our thoughts to the rest of the connected world.
3) The DDRB Toolkit
I use this toolkit for my personal storytelling, but it also helps when assessing the stories we're being fed:
- D - Does the story harm you
- D - Does the story harm someone else
- R - What's the reward of telling yourself/believing this story
- B - What's a way of being that would make this story irrelevant
Try asking yourself those questions about the things you scroll through each day and see if it helps.
4) Remember That You Have Response-Ability For The Stories You Do Subscribe To
If someone's way of viewing the world feels exciting, or the story they tell is one you want to live in, remember you have response-ability for it.
Like Hexagram 46.5, you have the power to respond at each interval to decide whether you want more of the results you're getting from believing or subscribing to something, or if you want to cut it off.
If *this* isn't what you want, you can choose to respond in a different way.
Of course, malefactors have their own culpability, but your mind, mental health, and mental self-defense is in your own hands. And that's a good thing, because it gives you some power in the situation.
5) Remind Yourself of Just How Much Is Invisible To You
You can't see everyone's credit card debt, acne, and self-esteem when you're scrolling through something like Instagram.
And when you're scanning Twitter, you're not seeing the planning meeting, or bank account, tied to that narrative that's flashing before your eyes.
There's a lot that gets edited out to give you a three-part story that tweaks levers and pushes buttons in your brain.
And those things are created by human beings (and now maybe AI, but that's another story) susceptible to the same "biases" that you are.
6) Choose Slow Media Over Social Media
I got many great things in my life from social media, most importantly, a relationship.
But social media has evolved, and some aspects have become more hostile to the average person.
While I'm not ordering you off of your favorite website, I hope that you'll at least consider spending some time away from it, or at least a little less time on it, to see what that does for your life.
An alternative is the media we had before social media, what I'll call Slow Media.
In the months prior to writing this, I've subscribed to multiple magazines for the first time since my youth, I've read more impactful books, and more long form journalism.
It's been great.
It feels like eating an informational meal instead of snacking on ideas encased in character limits.
I've chased jewels in the rough of deep Google results, and came away from it with great insights.
Another thing I'll suggest: Check https://pinboard.in/ and search a topic, or figure you want to read and see all of the (usually) medium-long-form stories about it/them.
It's often a much more helpful, refreshing form of media compared to the instant thoughts that populate places like Twitter.
And when pieces of writing go through an editor, you're likely to get something a little more rich, and worthy of your time.
Wrapping It Up
One thing I'm fairly confident about is that as the days, weeks, months, and years go by there will be new bullshit designed to convince you of this and that, or make a new source of income from your vulnerabilities.
Because of that, I hope that you're able to acknowledge that thousands of years later, human still have the same weak spots and strengths.
And that, while it's not a bad thing, we should be vigilant, and guard our minds against those that want to minimize those strengths even more.
I hope that some of the things I've provided above stick with you, and give you some pause the next time you see a photo of a Sasquatch, or lights above your head.