I was using SOCIAL MEDIA to shut up my monkey mind

a deceitful post, for a good cause...

I was using SOCIAL MEDIA to shut up my monkey mind

To escape problems. To avoid listening what the voice in my head was constantly saying. And what my exhausted body was complaining about.

I was using SOCIAL MEDIA to escape from life. To avoid thinking. To avoid being present. To avoid feeling the discomfort that was beneath the surface.

Why was I using SOCIAL MEDIA for that purpose?

Well, because it was easy! It was simple to convince myself that the time was well spent. It was socially acceptable to live my life like that.

Hence there was no guilt. I was growing in my LIFE, gaining skills and getting recognition.

Why am I telling this story now?

Because I know I am not the only one doing this. Because I am aware of how self destructive this approach to SOCIAL MEDIA can be. For health, relationships and creativity.

SOCIAL MEDIA is the perfect tool to escape from ourselves.

Ask this simple question: "What are you trying not to feel?"

Haha I tricked you!

Everything you just read is NOT by me, and NOT about social media.

That whole text is an excerpt of an interesting article from Livio Marcheschi’s

Think twice, it's all right

, about WORKAHOLISM. All I did was to replace every occurrence of "my job" or "work" with "SOCIAL MEDIA", and every occurrence of "career" with "LIFE". Here, check it out for yourself (before reading Livio's whole piece of course):

Life-sucking “careers” or social media? Where is the difference?

Why did I do this, you ask? Easy

The changes I made above just appeared automatically in my mind while reading how, and why "Being a workaholic is easy”.

I wrote this trick piece, in agreement with Livio, exactly because what you get with those changes to a text originally about work addiction is a coherent, 100% plausible description of a real condition many people live in these days... in a whole different "place".

I would argue that exposing, and then acknowledging certain similarities between being a workaholic and being a social media may be educational in and by itself. But even if I'm wrong, this trick piece may be a useful starting point, for everybody suffering of those or any other addiction, to see and start answering by themselves the common, crucial questions:

"What am I trying not to feel"?

As bonus help to answer that question...

I offer this screenshot (see partial translation below), from the "Horror Vacui" story by italian great cartoonist Zerocalcare:

1. you don't usually notice it because you're full of hassles...

2. but if you just try to remove all the garbage you use to fill every space...

3. you'll remain alone and see, at last, who you are really living with