Preserving Positivity

I spend a lot of time online, some of that time is spent by choice in my free time, the rest is by necessity as most of my disposable income comes from the internet. When you spend a lot of time online you get to see unsolicited opinions almost constantly, knowing these are opinions and not facts makes them easy to ignore but I do recognise that the ability to differentiate between opinion and fact is a point of critical thinking that people seem to be increasingly lacking.

When you can't tell the difference between an opinion and a fact it leaves you open to influence, some people make entire careers out of exploiting that point of ignorance, people we aptly refer to as influencers.

Power vs Power

I was born in 1988, so technically I am a child of the 80s yet the bulk of my childhood was spent growing up in the 90s. Even though the Internet existed for a few decades before I was born, the World Wide Web, the software application that has now become synonymous with the word "Internet" wasn't invented until the early 90s, it grew up and came of age alongside me which gives me and many of my generation a particular perspective when it comes to recognizing the potential that a technology can hold and the realisation of its application.

I grew up seeing some people fear the internet, surreptitiously some might admit that stance proved prescient, but from a more pragmatic mindset that ideological opposition was beyond prudent and decidedly pedantic. That fear lead them to resist the internet as much as they could, to the point that some of the older opponents in particular still don't use it, and whilst they live healthy and fulfilling lives without it, they do make their lives needlessly complicated and suffer from the self-imposed disadvantage that result.

Leopards and Leaders

I've been thinking about the concept of Leadership and what I think it means to me, after hearing other peoples' definitions of it I've realised that my definition differs quite starkly, whilst others define it in terms of vision, imagination, creativity, and direction, I define it in terms of conflict.

There is a difference between an opinion going unchallenged because there is no valid counter argument that anyone can think of, versus an opinion going unchallenged because of the nature of the person who holds it as they are perceived by others. I think of the gap between these two concepts is part of the reason why the Peter Principle exists, which if you're unaware of, the basic principle is that anyone in any job who is promoted for doing that job well will inevitably be promoted above their competence thereby guaranteeing that people always end up incompetent, doing jobs they're not actually good at doing.

Chapters

I think one of the biggest problems with the internet is continuity. Your online experience is continuous, there's no break, no stopping point, no logical partition. For everyone, with every platform you use, the presence you have on it grows and with that growth, the weight of what you contribute to that platform is carried with you.

Memories in real life fade for a reason, we hold on to what is important and we let go of the things that no longer serve us but the internet doesn't let you do that unless you go out of your way to make the conscious decision to "reset" your online presence but as a creator or as someone with a reputation that's pretty much impossible to do.

Momentary Relief

If you've been following my recent updates regarding my health this post is just a minor update, if you have no interest in that then feel free to skip it.

I still don't have the answers I wanted from Doctors, I don't have a diagnosis and that's the most frustrating part right now. I kept track of my diet for 6 months and how many times I threw up, in the end the total came to 36 which averages once or twice a week. I was prescribed a tablet called Pantoprazole to see if it would remedy the situation but for the two weeks I was on it I threw up every single day, so after consulting my Doctor we agreed to stop it.

The good news is that means it's probably not a stomach ulcer as Pantoprazole and all other -prazole tablets are a class of drugs called Proton Pump Inhibitors which act by lowering stomach acid levels. The fact this made my symptoms worse is a good indication this isn't a problem with stomach acid, and likely not an ulcer. This provided me with some relief mentally but it didn't last long as I still don't know what else it might be.

Sociological Imagination

Let's talk about Sociological Imagination. Quite simply, this concept is a measure of how deep you can imagine the impact of your actions and interactions on society more widely. Let's use a mug of coffee with 'Live. Laugh. Love.' printed on the side of it as an example.

If your Sociological Imagination is shallow then you will smell the coffee, taste the coffee, and drink the entire mug with little thought perhaps beyond whether it tastes good or bad, you may contemplate your existence or the day ahead and that's about all, you don't stop to really consider the mug of coffee.

If your Sociological Imagination is deep, then you will be able to look at that mug of coffee and see the engineering, economics, finance, industrial design, social, and cultural implications of your simple act of drinking that mug.

Telesocial Relationships

Fair warning I just need to vent so a lot of this post may seem repetitive and retracing old ground.

I live in a city that really has no business calling itself that because it's about the same size as a small town. City status in the UK is a bit of an odd concept because it has its traditions rooted in archaic practices rather than being relative to the size of the population or some other metric that would imply it has reached a certain milestone. This city in particular gained city status because of the number of cathedrals that were built in it, which again is quite an archaic concept but harkens back to the fact that the UK is technically a Theocracy as the Head of State is also the Head of the Church and as a monarch if you believe in the Divine Right of Kings supposedly was chosen by God to rule.

That's sort of a tangent to the main focus of this post but will become relevant later. I am gay, single, 36 years old, and did not expect to still be single at this point in my life if I am honest. Meeting guys here is difficult though, like I said this is essentially a small town and like any small town when you use apps or dating websites where you're inevitably presented with a grid, the faces on that grid might as well be static because they never change. When you've explored those options and come to the conclusion for each that either they're not interested in you or you're not interested in them, you're left with the conclusion that you're going to be single for the foreseeable future.