Well, that was a chock full package and maybe everyone is still reeling trying to take it all in. Let me add to the idea of story: "For example, the Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime isn’t just a story, or a creation myth; it’s an access point to a truer reality that contextualizes and defines this reality." Love your links and here's one for you to add: "Everything will change if we adopt the Universe Story": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUEu4YT0ZSA
>As the Gnostics warned us two thousand years ago, when you create a social reality with no connection to a deeper divine essence, and not alignment to a value greater than itself, you get lost in a maze where essential human values and relationships are mimicked endlessly and blindly in a chaos of hollow repetition. Then, as now, the only way out is to connect to the sacred; to an experience that places us more fully in reality.
Curious about this topic - where do the gnostics write about this? Is there a specific text you can link?
When reading those links - it's also important to remember that for the Gnostics (who weren't really a group but lots of different groups) the archons were mind-controlling false gods, and also the power structures of the state etc - so it's mysticism wrapped in politics. It's a dualistic view that I think is an excellent metaphor for the way our personality structure mimics deeper states of being and wholeness - and how our social and economic systems then do the same.
Thanks for such a thoughtful piece. There is nothing to beat in-person face-to-face although God knows we can be with other people and there's still a lack of full presence and intention. The interesting thing I find about zoom is the plausible deniability that we're not communicating fully. Of course we are - I can see you, you see me, we can feel connected, emotionally resonate with each other as if it's really real, or so it seems. We forget the lack of 3D presence, (I can't see the full context of your environment, the window that's just out of my line of sight) we forget the partiality of what we see (what are your feet and hands doing as you speak?) we forget we are not exchanging molecules as we communicate and so we forget the lack of completeness we are missing. I think we create things and systems in the world that are exact mirrors of our collective state of (un) consciousness ... and blindness. That's why we need people like you to show us what we aren't seeing.
Mmm. Luscious. Thank you for writing and sharing your heart, even if we receive it largely by way of flat, lifeless screen. Something alive, in this kind of writing, does come through and although I am alone in my room reading you, I feel connected in some small spark of a way. Connected and blessed.
Hey Alexander ! Love this piece! I have written a series of books called ‘social media for a new age’ over the past 5 years and am currently writing a new book where I share rituals and spiritual practices I’ve been developing around social media - Ive work predominantly with mind, body, spirit experts and practitioners over the past decade - and wanted to bring alignment and spiritual practices into the digital space (intention being a key part!) because I see the impact it has on content and audiences - I’ve studied digital wellbeing (dipICF) and the neuroscience of social media - emotional contagion through social networks being one such thing and the impact content has unconsciously on others as they scroll past. thanks so much for writing this !! I am fascinated in researching this all so much more - and I’ll also need to read a few times - been following your Substack for a while - thank you 🙏🏽
I only found the sacred by leaving social media. Or maybe leaving social media revealed what I didn't see before. Either way, the fragmentation of my attention left no space for the real world and I have no regrets about torching a 'successful' (in terms of attention on meeeeee) Twitter account and never signing up to another antisocial network
Excellent. Will have to read again as there is so much good stuff in here. But you have reminded me about 'Inside'. Have watched it 3 times but now I will have to go and watch it again! Genius music and both tragically sad, deeply disturbing and yet very funny - such a combination. I don't have any social media as I am still a fan of reading books and writing my own stories, but I also volunteer at a charity once a week playing Dungeons and Dragons with young people between 11 and 14. It is almost impossible to get them off their phones even though they have chosen to come along. The levels of ADHD appear to be off the charts and I feel like the whole world will go insane if/when the internet dies. However I did enjoy the one cat video that I will see this year ha ha.
Contrasting traditional spiritual practices as access to deeper awareness of self by holding focused attention to the commercialization of holding attention to an ontological view of being-in-world to our relationship to each other, physicality, reality, our sense of home, and originating mythology, there’s no need to ask ‘where the beef?’ This is all so profound and meaningful that it might be missing the profundity of meaninglessness.
Not making light of the profound mess, just balancing the two and recognizing the inescapable trap of significances and meaningfulness and the dual edged nature of language. As Wittgenstein said in part we must throw away the ladder after climbing it.
"Social media gives us addictive routine; constantly checking our phones, mindlessly scrolling, endlessly searching for new stimulation. In this way, it keeps us trapped in profane time. Endless cycles without much substance, a timelessness that isn’t full, but empty. Look up from a social media feed and you may have lost half an hour, but that half an hour wasn’t spent in an ‘eternal return’ to the sacred. It might have been spent watching cat videos, instead of relating deeply to others, yourself or the world."
This hits the nail on the head with most of the problems with social media. Its emergence has turned individual variety into a cacophony of irrelevance or blinding trigger-happy reaction spirals. Any meme sharing spreads mostly because there is a universal quality to the meme, so there is a bit of that "shared experience", but sharing a meme immediately burns out its value upon first seeing it. We all have that “I’ve already seen this one” when someone else shares an old meme with you. This “already been there” provides no residual foundation to work from, no contribution to community, no depth.
To also make this point personal, I come from an artistic background, and social media became more omnipresent when I was studying for my degree in animation. At the time around 2013-14, I had many conversations with friends about what social media was supposed to do for us, and how we could use it wisely. But the irreverence it ultimately called for made us mostly dispassionate about taking it seriously. Yes, we share our work online, but as Alex put it, “to what end?” Artstation.com went from being a semi-professional/professional place to post artwork to a flooded zone of a variety of skillsets, ranging from amateur to industry professionals.
As an artist, spending the time to generate artwork to display your interests and skillsets online often ends up with a sense of “to what end,” mostly due to the lack of interaction that can happen with the audience (or lack of). So when someone who spent 5 seconds to post a video that can generate thousands of views versus spending hours and days on a piece of artwork to have very little interaction is severely disheartening. Maybe I haven’t found an audience, maybe my skills aren’t up to par. But the ecosystem does not reward any attempts. It’s either all or nothing, literally. Either complete skill gathers attention (professional work), or complete lack of skill gains attention (quick memes). What of the middle ground? And how we have to compete with AI generated imagery? Who is all this content for?
Thanx, AB. This was great stuff, to be read many times to really get it all.
It hit me particularly I guess because when the Convid bizness got going with the vaxx, since I refused it, I was banned from in person meetings of 3 spirit groups I belonged to for many years. They were doing some "rituals" on zoom but I was not interested in a spiritual connection in that techy manner.
It's 2023 and they still proclaim, "fully vaxxed only!" Their irrational fear saddens me.
So to the comment about go to "church", some of us are not welcome. Nature is my back-up.
Love that gentle giant telling kitty, "you will stand here now!"
Well, that was a chock full package and maybe everyone is still reeling trying to take it all in. Let me add to the idea of story: "For example, the Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime isn’t just a story, or a creation myth; it’s an access point to a truer reality that contextualizes and defines this reality." Love your links and here's one for you to add: "Everything will change if we adopt the Universe Story": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUEu4YT0ZSA
>As the Gnostics warned us two thousand years ago, when you create a social reality with no connection to a deeper divine essence, and not alignment to a value greater than itself, you get lost in a maze where essential human values and relationships are mimicked endlessly and blindly in a chaos of hollow repetition. Then, as now, the only way out is to connect to the sacred; to an experience that places us more fully in reality.
Curious about this topic - where do the gnostics write about this? Is there a specific text you can link?
It's a big topic with lots of different interpretations - but this is a good starting point - https://gnosticismexplained.org/the-reality-of-the-rulers-the-hypostasis-of-the-archons/ - https://gnosticismexplained.org/archons/. I also go into this in more depth in the fourth chapter of 'The Bigger Picture'.
When reading those links - it's also important to remember that for the Gnostics (who weren't really a group but lots of different groups) the archons were mind-controlling false gods, and also the power structures of the state etc - so it's mysticism wrapped in politics. It's a dualistic view that I think is an excellent metaphor for the way our personality structure mimics deeper states of being and wholeness - and how our social and economic systems then do the same.
Ahh fascinating. I could see a good case for modern ideologies being a strong equivalent to the idea of the archon.
Yeah I've heard a lot about the gnostics but never looked into it. Thanks for the links.
Thanks for such a thoughtful piece. There is nothing to beat in-person face-to-face although God knows we can be with other people and there's still a lack of full presence and intention. The interesting thing I find about zoom is the plausible deniability that we're not communicating fully. Of course we are - I can see you, you see me, we can feel connected, emotionally resonate with each other as if it's really real, or so it seems. We forget the lack of 3D presence, (I can't see the full context of your environment, the window that's just out of my line of sight) we forget the partiality of what we see (what are your feet and hands doing as you speak?) we forget we are not exchanging molecules as we communicate and so we forget the lack of completeness we are missing. I think we create things and systems in the world that are exact mirrors of our collective state of (un) consciousness ... and blindness. That's why we need people like you to show us what we aren't seeing.
Mmm. Luscious. Thank you for writing and sharing your heart, even if we receive it largely by way of flat, lifeless screen. Something alive, in this kind of writing, does come through and although I am alone in my room reading you, I feel connected in some small spark of a way. Connected and blessed.
Hey Alexander ! Love this piece! I have written a series of books called ‘social media for a new age’ over the past 5 years and am currently writing a new book where I share rituals and spiritual practices I’ve been developing around social media - Ive work predominantly with mind, body, spirit experts and practitioners over the past decade - and wanted to bring alignment and spiritual practices into the digital space (intention being a key part!) because I see the impact it has on content and audiences - I’ve studied digital wellbeing (dipICF) and the neuroscience of social media - emotional contagion through social networks being one such thing and the impact content has unconsciously on others as they scroll past. thanks so much for writing this !! I am fascinated in researching this all so much more - and I’ll also need to read a few times - been following your Substack for a while - thank you 🙏🏽
Yeah well: Go to church
I only found the sacred by leaving social media. Or maybe leaving social media revealed what I didn't see before. Either way, the fragmentation of my attention left no space for the real world and I have no regrets about torching a 'successful' (in terms of attention on meeeeee) Twitter account and never signing up to another antisocial network
Excellent. Will have to read again as there is so much good stuff in here. But you have reminded me about 'Inside'. Have watched it 3 times but now I will have to go and watch it again! Genius music and both tragically sad, deeply disturbing and yet very funny - such a combination. I don't have any social media as I am still a fan of reading books and writing my own stories, but I also volunteer at a charity once a week playing Dungeons and Dragons with young people between 11 and 14. It is almost impossible to get them off their phones even though they have chosen to come along. The levels of ADHD appear to be off the charts and I feel like the whole world will go insane if/when the internet dies. However I did enjoy the one cat video that I will see this year ha ha.
Contrasting traditional spiritual practices as access to deeper awareness of self by holding focused attention to the commercialization of holding attention to an ontological view of being-in-world to our relationship to each other, physicality, reality, our sense of home, and originating mythology, there’s no need to ask ‘where the beef?’ This is all so profound and meaningful that it might be missing the profundity of meaninglessness.
Not making light of the profound mess, just balancing the two and recognizing the inescapable trap of significances and meaningfulness and the dual edged nature of language. As Wittgenstein said in part we must throw away the ladder after climbing it.
Brilliant. I can’t wait to read this again and again, letting it sink in deeper each time.
"Social media gives us addictive routine; constantly checking our phones, mindlessly scrolling, endlessly searching for new stimulation. In this way, it keeps us trapped in profane time. Endless cycles without much substance, a timelessness that isn’t full, but empty. Look up from a social media feed and you may have lost half an hour, but that half an hour wasn’t spent in an ‘eternal return’ to the sacred. It might have been spent watching cat videos, instead of relating deeply to others, yourself or the world."
This hits the nail on the head with most of the problems with social media. Its emergence has turned individual variety into a cacophony of irrelevance or blinding trigger-happy reaction spirals. Any meme sharing spreads mostly because there is a universal quality to the meme, so there is a bit of that "shared experience", but sharing a meme immediately burns out its value upon first seeing it. We all have that “I’ve already seen this one” when someone else shares an old meme with you. This “already been there” provides no residual foundation to work from, no contribution to community, no depth.
To also make this point personal, I come from an artistic background, and social media became more omnipresent when I was studying for my degree in animation. At the time around 2013-14, I had many conversations with friends about what social media was supposed to do for us, and how we could use it wisely. But the irreverence it ultimately called for made us mostly dispassionate about taking it seriously. Yes, we share our work online, but as Alex put it, “to what end?” Artstation.com went from being a semi-professional/professional place to post artwork to a flooded zone of a variety of skillsets, ranging from amateur to industry professionals.
As an artist, spending the time to generate artwork to display your interests and skillsets online often ends up with a sense of “to what end,” mostly due to the lack of interaction that can happen with the audience (or lack of). So when someone who spent 5 seconds to post a video that can generate thousands of views versus spending hours and days on a piece of artwork to have very little interaction is severely disheartening. Maybe I haven’t found an audience, maybe my skills aren’t up to par. But the ecosystem does not reward any attempts. It’s either all or nothing, literally. Either complete skill gathers attention (professional work), or complete lack of skill gains attention (quick memes). What of the middle ground? And how we have to compete with AI generated imagery? Who is all this content for?
Thanx, AB. This was great stuff, to be read many times to really get it all.
It hit me particularly I guess because when the Convid bizness got going with the vaxx, since I refused it, I was banned from in person meetings of 3 spirit groups I belonged to for many years. They were doing some "rituals" on zoom but I was not interested in a spiritual connection in that techy manner.
It's 2023 and they still proclaim, "fully vaxxed only!" Their irrational fear saddens me.
So to the comment about go to "church", some of us are not welcome. Nature is my back-up.
Love that gentle giant telling kitty, "you will stand here now!"