Dearest readers, what are your 2023 goals? 2022, and definitely a few years before it, has been crazy to say the least. So, no matter who you are, no matter how well you navigated all aspects of your life the last few years, you feel the need you have to do better in 2023; I am right there with you. So, the number one goal for all of us, for 2023, is to avoid living in a perpetual present. Stick with me, this is a good one.
The idea of perpetual present has been popularized in Orwell's 1984- one of the most nuanced cautionary tales I ever got exposed to in my life. According to the book's setting, the ruling party determines what the present ought to look like; the past is non-existent, and the future does not exist either. Interesting, unsettling and downright scary if you ask me. Now, dearest readers, let me tell you how I think this connects to our everyday lives going into 2023. No, I do not think that we have a ruling Party keeping us in the state of perpetual present designed by them down to the smallest of details, like the Party in 1984. What I do believe is that the 24 hour news cycle, YouTube and social media platforms, as awesome as they can be, have done two things. One, they fill our free time so much in the present that we may not have enough time, energy or brain power to reflect on the past or plan our future.
Let me give you some examples. Platforms like YouTube, and especially YouTube, are designed to take you down algorithmic rabbit holes. So, let us say that, for example, you have a past of being overweight and, at present, you go on YouTube and watch a bunch of diet and workout videos to put something together for yourself. The way the algorithms work is, as soon as you attach disproportionately to a particular topic, they send you so much more of it because, if you hyperfocus on it, the platform can serve you related ads and you are more likely to buy something off of them. However, for you as a human being looking for solutions to a particular problem that has haunted you in the past, this can be completely debilitating. You get stuck in that rabbit hole perpetually researching, perpetually planning, always looking for a better mouse trap so to speak. After a while, you are an expert in that topic, you can teach others so much about it, but you have little to no practice doing it. You forget why you wanted to go down that road in the past, what you want to achieve in the future, and it all becomes about the present and the just one more video sorta thing.
I see this problem everywhere. Just one more day of research, just one more course, just one more certificate. Dearest readers, I think that becoming trapped in this would make us go nowhere fast in 2023. It is great for content creators, no doubt about it. However, it is bad for us who are stuck in the perpetual present of passively consuming it without ever fully realizing what is happening.
What is the solution? The solution, I think, is to pay attention to the concept of consumer creator ratio. To my understanding, it is the ratio between how much you consume versus how much you create. Originally, the sources I read said that hey, if you watch lots of YouTube videos, you would do well to create a channel and make some videos about the stuff you know or stuff you like or both. That way, you get closer to balancing the ratio between the two sides and you have a chance to become popular and have real world returns on the time you invest this way. Now, the problem I have with this is that if the only way you balance out content consumption is with content creation, you are oversaturating that market and may get nothing at all out of it. Instead, I believe it is smarter to spend some time consuming this content but always have a basis for it in the problems and concerns from your past that you would like to resolve. Then, you spend way more time time implementing your newfound knowledge, always having on your mind what you want to get from it in the future. You resist the urge to just sit there and consume, to be stuck in that perpetual state.
So yes, I do think that Orwell's warning of a perpetual or endless present is a real thing, I do think it is making our problems accumulated from the last few difficult years much worse, but I do not believe that is is a person, a group or a political party doing it to us. I think it is technology that is doing it, and will continue to do it until we learn to wield it, instead of it wielding us. After all, it is not about what a technology does, but about what it does directly for us as individuals.
The idea of perpetual present has been popularized in Orwell's 1984- one of the most nuanced cautionary tales I ever got exposed to in my life. According to the book's setting, the ruling party determines what the present ought to look like; the past is non-existent, and the future does not exist either. Interesting, unsettling and downright scary if you ask me. Now, dearest readers, let me tell you how I think this connects to our everyday lives going into 2023. No, I do not think that we have a ruling Party keeping us in the state of perpetual present designed by them down to the smallest of details, like the Party in 1984. What I do believe is that the 24 hour news cycle, YouTube and social media platforms, as awesome as they can be, have done two things. One, they fill our free time so much in the present that we may not have enough time, energy or brain power to reflect on the past or plan our future.
Let me give you some examples. Platforms like YouTube, and especially YouTube, are designed to take you down algorithmic rabbit holes. So, let us say that, for example, you have a past of being overweight and, at present, you go on YouTube and watch a bunch of diet and workout videos to put something together for yourself. The way the algorithms work is, as soon as you attach disproportionately to a particular topic, they send you so much more of it because, if you hyperfocus on it, the platform can serve you related ads and you are more likely to buy something off of them. However, for you as a human being looking for solutions to a particular problem that has haunted you in the past, this can be completely debilitating. You get stuck in that rabbit hole perpetually researching, perpetually planning, always looking for a better mouse trap so to speak. After a while, you are an expert in that topic, you can teach others so much about it, but you have little to no practice doing it. You forget why you wanted to go down that road in the past, what you want to achieve in the future, and it all becomes about the present and the just one more video sorta thing.
I see this problem everywhere. Just one more day of research, just one more course, just one more certificate. Dearest readers, I think that becoming trapped in this would make us go nowhere fast in 2023. It is great for content creators, no doubt about it. However, it is bad for us who are stuck in the perpetual present of passively consuming it without ever fully realizing what is happening.
What is the solution? The solution, I think, is to pay attention to the concept of consumer creator ratio. To my understanding, it is the ratio between how much you consume versus how much you create. Originally, the sources I read said that hey, if you watch lots of YouTube videos, you would do well to create a channel and make some videos about the stuff you know or stuff you like or both. That way, you get closer to balancing the ratio between the two sides and you have a chance to become popular and have real world returns on the time you invest this way. Now, the problem I have with this is that if the only way you balance out content consumption is with content creation, you are oversaturating that market and may get nothing at all out of it. Instead, I believe it is smarter to spend some time consuming this content but always have a basis for it in the problems and concerns from your past that you would like to resolve. Then, you spend way more time time implementing your newfound knowledge, always having on your mind what you want to get from it in the future. You resist the urge to just sit there and consume, to be stuck in that perpetual state.
So yes, I do think that Orwell's warning of a perpetual or endless present is a real thing, I do think it is making our problems accumulated from the last few difficult years much worse, but I do not believe that is is a person, a group or a political party doing it to us. I think it is technology that is doing it, and will continue to do it until we learn to wield it, instead of it wielding us. After all, it is not about what a technology does, but about what it does directly for us as individuals.