It all started a few weeks ago with the discovery of a website.
The name isn’t flashy, just Science-Based Medicine. I discovered one of their articles when I dove deep into a random health-related google search while waiting in the parking lot of the acupuncturist. My mom was really late so I had time to waste.
Well. Maybe waste isn’t the right word. Because it sent me into a bit of a spiral. Article after article I combed through, watching person after person and practice after practice I’d come to admire get slandered. Acupuncture? Quackery. Reiki? Woo. Bulletproof coffee? Snake oil.
But that isn’t even where this headache began.
I feel like I’ve been in this tail-spin for a while. I have a hard time believing in anything. It’s like I’m actually making myself more miserable by reading more. Like my brain can’t process seeing the downsides of every job I want to take (if I click on Glassdoor one more time I’m gonna scream). Every diet I’d like to try. Every political belief I want to explore. Every “The Truth About-” article that pops up.
I’m having a hard time navigating life just as I’m sure other 25-year old’s do, but the internet is literally making it worse because in a sea of endless information everyone is trying to tell you that they are right or they have the answer.
Anonymous people behind screens who have SO MANY F*CKING OPINIONS ABOUT EVERYTHING. Whether it be foods, careers, politics (god help us) or just about any other subject, there are about a thousand people weighing in on it.
I wonder if this is what keeps people like me on the couch watching Netflix. Withdrawing from the world because it’s one of the only things in my life that feels simple. In an internet-consumed world, it’s only the stuff I do in isolation that makes sense.
Going for walks (without headphones). Meditating. Laying on my yoga mat and crying because life, it turns out, is a lot fucking harder than I really ever gave it credit for.
The internet is making everything complicated, yes, but I think it’s really worse than that. It’s sensory overload. It’s an unnatural state of being. It’s so easy to get lost in it and scramble to find your way out.
So I’m just slamming on the damn breaks, running for the exit and screaming as I run out of this theater. This constant clown-show is going to ruin my life if it hasn’t already.
Plus, it’d be nice to sleep.
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Originally published on Medium
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