I increasingly find myself between the walls of neurochemical ghosts. Referencing a previous blog post, The Absurd and the Dangerous, and the concept of the Glass Demon (a vice I know is there but cannot fully see), these treacherous circumstances have metamorphosed. Entities no more, they have become barriers. To what, you may ask? The life I want to live.
I segregate these vices into buckets labelled the Digital and the Physical. The digital consists of dating apps, Internet pornography, and social media. The physical contains sugar and alcohol.
Controversial, yes. Being employed and also aiming to build my career, it may seem daunting a task to write about self-intimacy, or even post-5pm bar hopping. However, I think honesty and truth moves the needle closer to the lives, the civilizations, we want to build and uphold. Further, I see it as personal therapy to write about these things, as embarrassing as they may be. It feels foolish to not make eye contact with these vices, as if sharks were lurking beneath my boat and my abstaining from pointing them out saves my life. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. Thus, my foray into these walls of neurochemical ghosts begins.
The Digital, Dating Apps:
Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Have romantic human relationships really been reduced to sub-three second techno-gestures? What happened to picking up handkerchiefs, which was one of the olden ways of a woman to signal her interest to a man. She’d drop a handkerchief, and the man would go, pick it up, and use the returning gesture as the genesis for their conversation. This seems more romantic, intimate, and straightforward, no? Instead, I have a fish market, called Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, OkCupid, Match.com, Plenty-o-fish (aha!) where I’m supposed to generate love out of taps and swipes and emojis. This is foolish. No, here’s a better word. This is futile. I enjoy the physical approach, going up to a pretty woman and being awkward and trying to use my words in the correct ways to gain a number or a first date. Dating apps offer nothing but digital infinity, and it’s second-tier compared to the next topic. Everyone on dating apps looks the same, using the same prompts in the same ways for the same reasons. It’s almost like we all got a memo of how our dating profiles should look, and its based off this figment of our collective imagination that doesn’t exist, yet influences us all to curate our profiles accordingly. Is this not true?! Yes, successful romances exist via dating apps. It’s not a lost cause. But its losing appeal since the bloody thing has been gamified to extract dollars out of mostly young, lonely men who end up being angrier at the world, touting things like the Pareto distribution and turning towards unhealthy communities of similarly-minded and frustrated brethren. In short, if you are not tall, handsome, wealthy, confident, and charismatic, you’re tapped out of dating apps. Most men are not tall, or handsome, or wealthy, or confident, or charismatic, and so they begin their descent into chaos. Excuse me, their climb into chaos, for chaos is not a pit, but a ladder (GoT reference anyone?). It seems that everyone I have interacted with, who has had a promiscuous phase, has told me, “it’s not worth it.” Indeed, I found my personal experiences to reflect this. I do believe this notion will transcend into the psychology around dating apps, where young adults will sigh and make up their minds that, “it’s not worth it.” Go out, touch grass, and maybe, just maybe, your hands might cross with a lover.
The Digital, Internet Pornography:
I found these retrospectively-horrific videos around age 10, in grade 5. Queue disgust. I didn’t really understand what was going on, because I didn’t understand sex. Fast forward some years, and my sexual education was bifurcated: I was learning about female anatomy in school and then watching male-female interactions online. Healthy? No, not at all. Obviously, most males have had this experience. This is also another horrible thing. That so many males have grown up on Internet pornography spells absolute doom for the future of civilization. Why? Because porn is not realistic! It’s made to utterly blast your dopamine system and give you a massive high. The only thing that compares with porn is real sex, but frankly, porn is free, unlimited, overly accessible, fast, reliable, isolated, easy, comforting, and non-judgemental. Sex, on the other hand, is tedious, uncomfortable, judgemental, pressurized, social, costly, limited, relatively inaccessible, and…boring (compared to porn). Instead of wooing a woman, just click and c*m. It makes sense why specifically men are so lazy, so non-dominant, so incredibly lonely. They’ve been brought up on videos that attack their biggest biological imperative: procreation. Without this drive to create offspring, there’s really no point in life — I mean this literally. It may be controversial but I believe schools need to begin talking about the effects of Internet pornography and start teaching students (with the permission and supervision of parents) about these social and societal ramifications. It makes no sense to let something so widespread go undiscussed.
The Digital, Social Media:
Ever wondered why your mental health sucks? It’s probably because of social media. Nay, it is because of social media. These metrics, such as likes, comments, followers, subscribers, views, shares, blah, blah, blah, they all contribute to your mental functioning. These platforms, your profiles, are seen (in your mind, either subconsciously or consciously) as representations of you, a direct link to your identity and thus self-esteem. The psychological cascades which occur when a post goes viral, or is a dud, make sense now. Since they are a direct reflection (in your mind) of your status / place in society, you either get a high like you’re ‘celebrity famous’ or a low like you’re some unknown rando on the street. And, of course, everything in between. This is sinister enough, and its affects on adults are clear. But what happens when children are raised on this cybersocial™ reality? Look at Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who have grown / are growing up with infinite, unlimited, unrestricted, unregulated access to Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Does it make sense why modern attention spans are shot? Does it make sense why youth are addicted to Instagram and TikTok, wanting to be influencers instead of astronauts and scientists? Is it clear how and why this moment is so dangerous for the future? We have created two* generations that cannot focus, think straight, understand complex topics, reason, critically think, or effectively communicate. And we expect these collectives to solve climate change, or achieve Type-1 status, or generate breakthroughs in cancer and human health? This isn’t a slight, and I do not ask these questions rhetorically either. I am genuinely curious. If everything I said above is true, then these questions are logical and terrifying.
The Physical, Sugar:
I’d love a slice of chocolate cake right now. Or, when I’m in Paris, a gorgeous pain au chocolat. Or when I’m back home in Toronto, I’ll go to my favourite bakery that has Blondies — the dessert. These thoughts fire off in my mind as soon as starvation sets in with a tad more strength than usual. Usually between 2-8pm on any given day, I feel this force beckoning me to shove skittles down my throat or eat just one dark chocolate cookie from a cafe merely five minutes away. “No!” I shout, unperturbed by these unconsented demands of my brain and body. I like the way I feel without sugar in my gut. No inflammation, my hair, skin, mind, muscles, they all work better when sugar is not invited to the dinner table. But every once in a while, I just cave in and eat a cookie or several. Why is this? Because it’s readily available and highly addicting. It really should be illegal, in my opinion, to have hoards of sugary treats literally everywhere. I cannot think of one place that doesn’t serve foods that are packed to the brim with fat, salt, and sugar. This is notoriously evil since sugar was the one thing we binged on evolutionarily. Fruits were rarer than today’s standards, honey the same. As soon as we came across finite sources, we all — in our tribes — ate as much as humanely possible. But now, I spend $20 on chocolate croissants and white chocolate macadamia cookies, which have WAY more sugar than we’re used to, blast my dopamine circuits, make my skin and hair ugly, ruin my appetite, and most devious of all, make me want more. Dare I ask: is this fair? How disciplined do I have to be, every single hour, every day, every week, to not resort to gluttony and go around my current city (Montreal) and inhale every dessert on every block. It’s damn near impossible. Yet, this painstaking process affects every individual whether they’re aware of it or not. Our society and our bodies have become so accustomed to sugar in every venue and event that it’s out of the question to not make eye contact with delectable pastries or candy bars. Plus, if mental health is suffering, or hunger is demanding, these treats seem even more appealing. So, do we ban sugar? C’est fou. Shall we teach the public about sugar’s affects on the mind and bodies of folks young and worldly, and showcase how it has the same features as alcohol sans the inebriation? Apparently so.
The Physical, Alcohol:
Speaking of alcohol and inebriation, isn’t it concerning that such a diabolical substance has been grandfathered into society? Worse, it’s not weird when someone drinks. But, in the paraphrased words of Chris Williamson in his “1000 Days Without Alcohol” video, if you don’t drink, people think you have a problem. This is…strange. I have become part of the “Low-to-No” movement, and frankly, it’s cool but it is not this amazing revelation everyone seems to speak to. Maybe there are a lot of folks who have this profundity via abstaining from the Liquid but I suspect that more often than not, people are posturing. I don’t mean to sound abrasive up to this point, so let me be clear: the Low-to-No movement is an absolute force for good, for positive change. I just don’t want people to make it trendy and begin “just saying” that they’re part of the movement for instrumental clout; I want to keep it pure and intrinsic. Alcohol, pour moi, isn’t worse than sugar or social media. But it does raise questions in my mind, which I’ll get to. I found that, as I have practiced abstaining from alcohol, I don’t go out anymore. And going out with friends is now a bit more…nuanced? Before, we’d all go from bar to restaurant to bar to club and get blasted. But, now, it’s just me going to a fraction of those places, and enjoying their company. The dynamics of friendship and relationships have shifted with no alcohol consumption. It also turns the entire point of cities on its head. Before, I thought of the influx of bars and pubs and restaurants and clubs as potential; we could go there, and there, and here, and over there! But after enlightenment, or something of that sort, I find that basically every place I go has the same not-so-implicit expectation: that I drink. It’s kind of a turn off, pour moi. Stemming from the introductory sentence, the diabolical nature of alcohol cause me to reject and become suspicious of all establishments that serve it. Don’t they know how bad it is? Shouldn’t this realization prompt them to close up shop? Again, either they don’t know that alcohol is existentially toxic to humans, or they do. I’m not sure which one is worse.
Reconstruction:
I must break these walls and begin anew. These neurochemical ghosts indeed plague me, likewise for the rest of my civilization in some shape or form, in big or small ways. I find it sobering that more and more people are writing about this, documenting their journey’s, creating videos to showcase anecdotes or research on the negative effects of these aforementioned ghosts. Will capitalistic incentives be toppled? Unlikely. Will social enlightenment cause a new Renaissance in health and wellbeing? I hope so. There’s always been an importance between ignorant consumption and knowledgable abstinence. Worldly generations may be set in their ways, but Gen Z and Gen Alpha can strive to better their societies and tribes, protesting not against politics and government, but against companies, perverse incentives, and begin breaking down the walls of these neurochemical ghosts.