Raw and Real Conversation
10 years ago, the internet game of India changed forever.
A new telecom company Jio started its operations. And offered a sim, daily data of 2GB and unlimited calls. ALL FOR FREE.
It lasted more than 6 months from September 2016 to March 2017. (Ooh, habit formation.)
As a result, within little time, all other telecom operators also had to reduce their prices.
Prior to that, there used to be monthly internet packs of 2.5 GB. Now there are internet packs with daily 2.5 GB.
It is good on the surface of it. But excess of everything is poison.
So I sat down to observe how unlimited internet has damaged us in so many ways, such as:
1. We have an acute lack of self-worth. If someone else is “happy in restaurants” or “dancing with friends” and we are not, it means there must be something wrong with us only! This lack of self-worth has also translated to older people, when their peers are starting new cooking YouTube channels or new businesses after retirement, but they are doing none of this.
2. We do not have a life outside of phone. Is this what we were born for? To work out very little on our feet and run miles on the phone with our thumbs? Has that become ultimate goal of our lives?
At max, our lives “outside of phone” states and ends with a mall. How about going to the lake or garden nearby, spending some time there, and not posting a single story/post about it?
Joy when truly felt is not bound to consistent documentation.
3. The infinite need to become an influencer. Yes, it is a good and a profitable business (for some people). But look closely at the lives of any real influencer who has “made it” and you would realise they spend massive amounts of time away from the internet too.
4. So many more have lower back pain! And they have normalised it :(
My dear friend, health is normal. Pains should not come to you ideally before the age of retirement.
5. This one breaks my heart. Because people are on the internet more, they are reading less.
Reading (good books) makes you think differently. And just think. It is like travelling the world without a ticket (and Insta stories :D).
6. Oh, the parallel arrival of Netflix with unlimited internet. Netflix and Amazon Prime video were launched in India in the year 2016. Now we can rewatch your favourite SRK movie a 100 times while the project that requires deep work has been sitting idle for 100 days! :/
I can write so much more, but it is important to reduce the negative to as little as possible, and walk towards conclusion.
7. We human beings as a species were all leaner at one point. Again comes from sitting too much, moving and thinking too little. Of course if you are all fit and fine, from 30s to 60s the body does go through change.
But when I look at younger pictures of my elder sisters or my parents, and compare it with younger pictures of today’s generation, again, the unlimited internet and hence unlimited food delivery are impacting health. Visibly as obesity. Invisibly as brainrot.
Yesterday I came across a video of Sister Shivani of Brahma Kumaris. She was referring to the time when her talk show Awakening with Brahma Kumaris had just started on Aastha channel. A year after the talk show, she started travelling around the country giving talks. And she was stunned by what she saw.
There were people who were going through worst of their life situations, and got out of them just because they watched the 30-minute talk show of hers. For those who don’t know, it is about application of spirituality to practice. The people who gave this feedback made no other change but only this 30 minutes to their lives.
It made her wonder, that if merely 30 minutes of daily positive content could create so much positive differences in the lives of people, what would be the effect of so much disempowering daily content on our minds?
It often pains me that a lot of our free time, boredom, and sometimes our entire existence has boiled down to being online. Just because we have a lot of it.
I now feel pity for people who are constantly on the nook of the internet, wasting their life, trying to please an audience that is doing the same.
And it is not just Instagram. Instagram is just the biggest culprit. Twitter, Snap, LinkedIn are contributors too. At some level performance has become more important than doing the work that performs for itself.
As a result, ladies and gentlemen:
No one is getting validated. And everyone is equivocally empty.
I know, I am no one to judge what someone else does. Also, social media tells very little story of someone’s whole life. But even if it is a partial story, most people are living it 30 out of 24 hours of the day to make a point.
Is the point even worth making if it makes you more addicted to projection and alienates you from who you really are?
So, what is the solution to the unlimited internet encapsulation we all have gotten into?
You know it in your heart. Had preachings and teachings worked, we have abundance on the internet. I have shared some in the past, but this time I wish you to dig deep.
When you sit with yourself, you know what you can do to get out of this collateral yet reversible damage.
I want to leave you with a story, though.
This week Taylor Swift did a secret performance at the Grammy Museum in LA. The list of the things she did was circulating on the internet, and one of those has stayed with me.
She said something to the tune of she does not wait for the idea fairy. She shows up to do the work. And then the idea fairy also shows up.
We somehow think that the resistance to excellence would some day go away when we would be rich, successful or living our dream. Swift is doing all of these. But the fight against this resistance is everlasting. It is up to us to fight that every day. Or to start scrolling, because hey, we do not pay for the internet with so much money, as much as we pay for it with our dreams, health and mindset.
And it is worth remembering what James Clear often says about consuming:
“The measure of a life is not what you consume, but what you contribute.
Spend less time owning, consuming, taking. Spend more time giving, creating, making.”
2 Raw One-Liners:
The easiest way to have more energy is to speak less.
The easiest way to have less resentment is to have the courage to have an assertive yet polite conversation.
(Both are apparently contradictory yet they are not, which is the beauty of words!)
3 Real Confessions:
I missed the in-person show of a wonderful artist last weekend. On purpose. There is no logical reason, but let me try my illogical ones: Mujhe achchha lagta hai garden mein jaakar uselessly wander karna, ek ghante ke liye sham ko meditate karna, and most importantly, I need to walk around to consume content for 3 hours. Sitting is too much!!! No hate towards that artist. She is an inspiration. But I gotta become mine :) I did squander that money, but at least I did not squander that time again.
I am going to a family function for rakshabandhan. We have a party (of another occasion) a day before that too. And my biggest wish from this 1.5 day of trip is that my Mom comes out if it in good health. How life priorities change :))
I was in H&M the other day. And saw a GenZ boy click the picture of a dress in his Nokia dumb phone. The kinda you get for ~2,000 INR on Amazon that have the camera just for the sake of it. It is the kind of people like this that make me feel hopeful despite 10 years of abundance of internet. 💜
That is it my friend.
Wish you more time with yourself, being who you really are, because that is what we really need. 💜
Nishtha Gehija
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