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Geoffe's avatar

Before I uninstalled TikTok, my wife once peeked over my shoulder and watched a few videos with me, getting just the kind of window into my psychology that you describe in this article.

She just asked “You realize that every one of these videos’ main message is that you’re not good enough in some way?”

And she was right! They were all self-help adjacent, though mostly spiritual or biohacker-y. Every video would propose a reason I was inadequate and then offer a solution.

You could say I was distracting myself from my desire to be good enough. Good enough for what? To earn what? Really, I was distracting myself from the fact I didn’t believe myself worthy of love—or love myself.

I didn’t frame it in exactly those terms back then. Looking at my example you can see how it’s a useful conceptual framework, though. All that confrontation with my self-loathing shadow was holding me back from getting the love that would actually solve my problem.

So yeah. Glad I uninstalled TikTok. Lots more energy to connect with myself.

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Spaceman Spiff's avatar

Our existence is ending one minute at a time. Most of us have at least some ambition to do some outlandish thing, yet we do nothing to make it happen. Often the reason is fear or anxiety. Our lives are often derailed by only mild discomfort. And to comfort us from the discomfort we have mindless crap online.

Everyone does it. It is a constant battle. My best antidote is to produce something, anything. Articles, music, dig the garden.

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