Be Built or Be Destroyed

The modern world is filled with many things that are good and can be used to do good:  you can spread optimism on social media through positive messaging, we have abundant access to food with relatively no physical effort needed to gather food, and things like shelter/clothing/transportation are fairly easily accessible in America.  There are many potential advantages to living in the modern world but as we all know these same things come with a downside if one is not vigilant:  social media has created lots of narcissism and attention seeking behavior, we all probably have had or continue to have our struggles with overconsuming processed foods to the detriment of our health, and the pursuit of money and material wealth is a tantalizing distraction to us all at some point in our lives.  Similar to food, pursuing money/material things can often be to our detriment in terms of the development of humility and virtuous character traits.

My recent writing has had a running theme of self awareness and self knowledge.  The increasing conversation around Artificial Intelligence and its impact on society is what has me thinking about self awareness/knowledge more specifically.  I’ve always believed that modern societies create new technology much quicker than our ability to develop the mental skills needed to use that technology wisely.  Social Media is a great example of this.  Back in the early 2000’s when Myspace and Facebook were nascent tech companies competing for market share, who could have foreseen social media’s impact on mental health?  It’s only in hindsight that we’ve seen this.  Same thing with food.  Processing was supposed to make life easier but it also made things taste really damn good.  Technology, science, and mechanization has the potential to make our lives easier but at the end of the day each one of us is on our own in terms of avoiding overindulgence.  

Yet another reason why I believe Personal Ownership is the most important skill in life.  There’s no environmental pressure for you to go out and hunt, forage, and build shelter.  There are starting to be fewer reasons to even go out into the world and socialize face to face.  If you are someone who’s awkward and shy like I was growing up, you can certainly live a good material existence in isolation while you avoid the challenge of overcoming your social anxiety in today’s world.  

You can learn computer programming and work remotely.

You can have all your food delivered to your doorstep via amazon.

You can pay all your bills online.

It seems to me that as a society becomes more and more advanced, there are fewer natural environmental constraints on our behaviors.  Therefore, it is incumbent on each one of us as individuals to practice self awareness, pursue self knowledge, and exercise self discipline.  We have to take responsibility for not being consumed by the comforts of the modern world.  In my opinion there are some really interesting personal journeys that can be taken without great fanfare:

Maybe you’re the weird person in your family/friend group who decides to get a ‘dumb phone’ because you are tired of screens.

Maybe you’re the weird person who decides to get rid of your car and use public transportation/walking/bike riding.

Of course it doesn’t have to be a big change.  You could start budgeting to get out of debt (that’s a weird thing in our society).  You could start exercising everyday (another weird one).  You could start treating everyone you meet with a little more honesty and kindness (weird).  We could all practice small changes to resist being overcome by pleasure seeking in the short term so that we have more mental strength in the long term.  The practice of self discipline also gives you more wisdom to share with others.  

Like many things, I try to take an optimistic view of technological and scientific progress.  The advances in our ability to be comfortable offer us the opportunities to be more self disciplined and self aware.  Both are good things.