I thought I would start the on line magazine, with my own article. It is 4.30am, I can’t sleep and that has become the norm lately. This is a not a rant, nor a method to persuade a point of view..this is me. This is who runs Madeira Active.
So, as the title suggests, this is a ramble of an honest and somewhat deluded woman. And written in the early hours of a new morning. As you all know Facebook has become a humungous issue and in some part become what I would now call a war game. But let’s go back to last year, when all things were rosy, people got on with their lives, we met up, had events, used Facebook as a form of friendly conversation, an information exchange portal and all was right with the world.
Zip to now…and it has become a smorgasbord of vile assassinations of other peoples view points, characters and pure hatred.
and why?
So I was lying in bed, trying to sleep, but my brain wouldn’t shut down. I am exhausted, mentally and physically. I could understand it, if I had run around the village this evening in an effort to shift this unsightly mid rift that has gained exponentially since being in a lock down. I could understand it if I was stressing out over my businesses like I did last year…motivated by having one… I have not been exercising (actually I never have, I always thought that my busy life style and running around was enough exercise, and actually could never understand why I had the ‘large’ figure as I don’t eat the ‘wrong stuff’ but do kid myself by having the ‘treat’ of a red wine every evening – but that has nothing to do with it)! And I am not running around like a blue arse fly anymore, I have been grounded like the rest of you teenagers have. Only I have nothing to unground myself for, as I now have nothing to resume to be teenagery about.
So what has drastically changed? Why have we become judgemental, argumentative and become so avidly stuck to our own belief systems? Why do we feel the need to verbalise what we believe in when someone else attacks us for not believing what they do?…Did we have this problem last year?
We all are part of a massive shift, change and dimension which has intruded into to our daily lives. And it literally happened over night. Even though we saw something growing, I don’t think any of us really could understand the effect that a pandemic could actually have on our day to day lives, our livelihoods and how that would change our perceptions of the world outside our own front door. Six months down the line we are still in shock.
It doesn’t help us heal from that shock, when every time you turn on the news, there is more doom and gloom. It doesn’t help us heal from that shock when you see all the new adverts, now promoting the ‘new’ way of ‘normal’ life. There is some new sparkly product that is now Covid friendly, there is a charity out there that is now even more desperate for your money because of Covid, there is a new mask design that will afford you more protection against Covid….everything that we see, hear or do is now Covid, Covid Covid…..we cannot escape it, we cannot ignore it, for it is everywhere.
We can’t heal yet, as we have had no time to adjust to the shock and are consistently subjected to the persistent musings of the continual doom and gloom.
You cannot help it, when you look at your spouse, as they might be a carrier of that deadly disease and the mere thought of a cuddle could kill you. (and I could kill for a cuddle from anybody right now, because human interaction has been completely stripped from us)!
I now don’t watch the news. I rarely have the TV on….which is the complete opposite of what I used to do during the rare times I was at home (when life was normal), it was always put on for company, a back ground distraction. I live on my own.
I know a lot of people, I know a lot of different people with different circumstances. Some have stayed in work, some lost their jobs, some trying to just exist…some are retired, some are business owners like me. Everyone of us has had our lives turned upside down.
The weeks at first then turned into months, six months later and I am sure I am not the only one who is racked with guilt, because I have nothing to show for that time. I didn’t achieve anything. Life stopped. It’s not normal!
In March when everything went tits up and we were all sent to Coventry to sit at home and were encouraged to become couch potatoes, binge Netflix and horde toilet paper…we were told that we were being responsible adults. This was mana from heaven for every 16 to 20 year old that had just been chucked out to embark on a life in the big wide world. And I think everyone did it for the first couple of weeks, thinking that it would only be for a couple of weeks, and what the hell, this was a ‘forced’ holiday and it would all be over soon, because everyone stayed home.
I was a late bloomer, during that time when everyone was revelling in the forced holiday, I was sat at my computer with hand moulded to my phone, assisting all the Foreigners to leave the island and retreat to the countries that were recalling them, not unlike a faulty electronic product. I retreated to my own bat cave after, to have my forced holiday and it was utter bliss. I found joy in books again, music and became devoid of any responsibilities now that I had an excuse along with everyone else to ditch them. I also got back into meditation, despite my lodgers persistent pouncing on me for company, as soon as I got to my spot in my garden. I was a late bloomer, finding my bliss at a time when everyone else had become bored shitless.
So, let’s look at it in stages…bliss, then bored shitless….what comes after that?
More bored shitlessness…
Facebook…
Google….hunt for remedies of boredom, look up the latest Trump favoured drug
Facebook, join more groups
Google adenocrome and how to make bread
Facebook, join some more groups
Google some links that look interesting that you saw on a facebook group that says Corona is a Hoax
Facebook, get angry because you posted a meme, you thought funny and it was deleted as fake content
Google more ‘conspiracy theory content’ you saw on Facebook
Facebook, post legit content from google proving hoax theory, have that deleted as fake
Google, how can Facebook monitor and delete private content
Facebook other people who are posting ‘fake conspiracy content’
Google that content that leads you to Alien invasions
Facebook, post the Alien invasion theory and have everyone call you a crazy
Watch tons of You tube videos….mix it with meditation, Ted Talks and Nature videos
Facebook, get interested in arguments on other people points of views on the groups you joined
Facebook, join in on those arguments
Facebook, now defend yourself for getting into the middle of the squabble
Facebook, Facebook Facebook….its not just all about Covid Covid Covid any more.
and for an awful lot of us out there, we have an awful amount of time that we never had….and Facebook has filled that void…stopped us from staying bored shitless.
Having now been completely cut off from any normal human interaction for months, does kinda make one go a little doo lally.
The only interaction I get is a supermarket trip trussed up in a mask with no hope of recognising another masked friend, we all look like bandits and even the supermarket teller is placed behind a plastic barrier furthering the distance of another fellow human being. (and I have to ask, does anyone else now feel that packing your shopping has become a new artistic form of dexterity, as you have to contort your body into different positions to pack your goods around a very badly placed plastic barrier)?
I digressed.
Facebook. So, what I see is this; we have replaced our human contact needs, to the virtual friends we have there and have shifted our focus for contact through this medium. It doesn’t matter now how this is instrumented….any contact by interaction is attention, even if it is negative.
And if you really look past the interaction of where you are playing a part in a virtual war game, intended or not…there are war games acted out all over the place on there. This evening, I was on a group, defending myself over some very nasty comments aimed at MA and me personally….the abuse from people over the last few weeks has been dreadful and has seriously affected my state of mind and mental health. Then something snapped this evening…..below the attack on me, was a real estate agent with a post he had put up with pictures of a luxury pad in Funchal. Six months ago he would have attracted a few thumbs up and heart emojis and maybe one response asking the price. That post was filled with people ridiculing his price, slating the apartment and making fun of the view, the fact that he had the nerve to post the advert and some lady (I want to call her some bitch, but I have to be polite) even took one of the photos that he posted, enlarged the image of the sofa, circled it in red, posted it back onto the thread and made a nasty remark about the fact that he advertised a half million euro pad that came with a frayed arm on a sofa. That was truly ugly. I went to bed on that this evening, as that really upset me to see this guy be so nastily attacked for a property advert. If he received that reaction for the majority of his posts, I would not be surprised if the poor guy did himself in….. and that’s where we have got to in this stage, 6 months into a pandemic. Facebook isn’t a safe space anymore, people have become vile and nasty and will pick on anyone and anything and attack them.
Why? Why not? it has now become the acceptable way to be.
It is not acceptable to me. And this affects my mental health. We need to really look at what we are doing and who we are becoming.
I am sitting here now, having not written what was in my head when I first started to write…it went so far off my original source point, but it is food for thought. And that is the reason I wrote this, to invite your thoughts on a perspective of mine.
But I am now off to bed, and have now seen the light. Facebook is Faceless….and I refuse to let that negativity there, now affect my state of mind. Who are those people that I have never met, but with words can rip you to shreds. I was not paying attention to what was real and facebook is NOT real and no substitute, no matter how bored shitless you are, for real human contact.
One Response
Having read your comments. I too have put up what I thought was a funny meme and was slated by someone on fb. The only difference between us is that I laughed it off. The people are just as you say probably bored and looking for something to say but I was taught by my mother that if you can’t say something nice say nothing at all. Those people are not worthy of your sleepless nights and mental stress it’s what they want from you. I am sorry that you feel so low. In Porto da Cruz life is carrying on as normal for us almost just the masks things but we swim and walk do our garden as always and other general things. We have interaction with friends and family be it from afar. The Facebook people who slate you should not be called friends and therefore cannot hurt you. Take care and stay safe.