The attention economy has taken over our lives completely. Unless one is enrolled in university or finds exceptional focus it is hard to get out of the content consumtpion loop and shift to the content creation side. After a day's work, doing the chores of adulthood and sleep there's little time to be spent learning new skills and finding the interest to develop them, while doom-scrolling bypasses this lack

The ubiquity of the attention economy makes sure that there's no premium on encouraging people to learn and the onus is put on the individuals to fight their battles with digital addiction as the corporations behind them make bank. Where does one even begin in a sea of distractions where having no phone or internet is equivalent to losing half of one's soul? Modern workplaces, relationships and bureacracy require one to be perpetually online to be on top of things, so being a Luddite and disconnecting from the world is not the solution, nor is the self-discipline, which is the equivalent of telling a coke addict to detox through song and prayer.

Unfortunately, this prevailing trend could have detrimental consequences for humanity in the long run. As more people are encouraged to consume content rather than contribute to it, and to adopt prevailing opinions rather than nurturing independent thought, society risks becoming insulated in a cocoon of global perspectives devoid of critical filtration. A populace accustomed to passive consumption might struggle to confront the unfiltered challenges of reality, impeding the cultivation of proactive and creative thinking.

How does one learn in such an environment? And to what purpose does this learning serve? One of the ways that seem promising is to use the internet as a tool to teach others, shares one's experiences and serve as a notebook of progress, refining one's own learning process while also inspiring others. Another would be to do a hard social media reset and a blanket wipe of distracting apps from every computing device and set-up a daily routine of distraction-free learning, though this method requires immense willpower and one also needs to find a greater purpose towards the goal they're learning for. Either way, the battle to regain our attention from digital corporations to individual selves requires an almost spiritual levels of patience and understanding of our thought processes, environments and the human weakness to procrastinate.

#work #internet #consumerism

Where do modern humans go to find their soul? What's the physical space that's share by all that also doubles as a spiritual extension of the self? The churches and temples have been replaced with disillusionment and technological progress. The people who haunt these former spiritual mines are relegated to the forgotten and stupid. Regular attendance to these former seats of glory requires a commitment different from one which modern societies are aligned towards, of constant growth and efficiency. Where do we find our souls then?

Our salves are on the supermarket racks, all redesigned and in “new” formulas, the packaging made to contain all the artifice behind pastoral images of deliverance. In the supermarket, we're all one, our religion determined by our economic preferences.. the organic markets for the elite cultists and the everyday discounters for the masses. The priest is now the cashier scanning our inner desires and sending our payments of prayers to an invisible payment processor, who exists in forms unimaginable but before us it is a plastic chunk. “Pray to thee Mastercard, and let peace be upon us” or “Visahu Akbar”, we internally pray, our life's meaning disintegrated to a point of sale transaction. All transactions are little prayers, one in made in hope that we're not found as frauds or bankrupt. The lowest rungs of hell are populated by those who cannot pay, as anyone with a non-functioning credit card at a supermarket checkout line or hanging outside the supermarket doors with wrinkled paper cups and broken teeth can attest.

Where the damned go to beg is a good indicator of where the collective spirit of our soul lives. While the original spiritual centers become depopulated, there's increasing lines outside the busy commercial centers of the city. Our ideas of green fields, blue skies and cows with bells dangling from their necks, this Alpine idea of heaven is pasted on disposable milk cartons, the only touch with the teats of mother nature. Stories of indifference and exploitation constantly mirror our lives and yet after consuming them our real salvation is in the supermarket racks, finding the best deal, that favorite fruit or a extravagant box of sugar, hallucinating of making a difference while tethered to our irreversible desires. Long live the supermarket, for hell would be a world without one.

#capitalism #consumerism #religion