Verba volant, Scripta manent

Instagram and Twitter.

Tiktok and YouTube.

Newsletter and Infographics.

Bite-sized content and long-form.

I never understood the social media game. It's unexplainably hard. I stuck with Instagram for a long time since it's interesting to sprinkle the words with visual background (most of my friends are on Instagram anyway). It couldn't satisfy my innate urge for plain text and practice to decorate my words with.. words.

Then, I found TikTok disrupted the whole "shiny and sleek" nature of Instagram, where people polished their profiles and pictures to appear aesthetic and high class. TikTok serves Instagram the cold dopamine shots right in its face. The algorithm is freaking good.

I still have that urge in me. Then it occurs to me: Has TikTok robbed our generation of the ability to craft hobbies, daydream, and literally sit and do nothing? I fought the tendency to open TikTok every time there was a short break time. Instead, I choose nothing. Nothing allows me to process what I've gone through.

And I honestly think we all need it somehow. We need maintenance. Diet from distractions, diet from mental "junk foods". From what I observe happening inside me, social media is comforting. It silences the chaos and unpredictability of the outside world. Here, whenever I dislike something, the next video that I might like is waiting, one swipe away. Isn't it what happens with online dating? So many options, yet nothing is available.

There's a little corner on the internet that jokes about men should go to therapy. Well, I once read that writing is therapy. An idea worth revisiting. Chaos is worth embracing.

We need to valiantly embrace the chaos, not silently lie down to the lullaby of the predictable, passive consummation of For You Page. We need something cognitively complex and feel out of control once in a while. The choice to swipe up whenever we dislike something is deeply disturbing. We don't have that choice in life. We will meet chaos.

TikTok is easy. Daydreaming is hard. We need to struggle and meet the big question mark we left in the corner of our minds.

The state of our screen time starves us of necessary creative space. The world seems, then, to equalize talent with interest. No, it isn't. What you're good at does not equal what you're interested in. We just didn't give ourselves enough questions and time to walk the road and close the loopholes.

Writing will expose the naked mind, the ever-increasing high-pressure vacuum space we filled with cheap dopamine.

I suspect this has everything to do with skyrocketing mental illnesses and loss of artistic touch in our era. Everything is sans serif, minimalistic, and plain. Nothing is worth a question and let's just fight over it on someone's tweet instead.

We can't even sit alone with ourselves but we were expected to be angry with every tragedy and pity every gofundme at the same time.

Respect idleness. You can be bloated with news but still left uninformed. Process your thoughts into learning. Write. Crystallize it into wisdom.

Wandering thoughts must be tamed. Force feeds them with silence and nothingness. Give the sour taste of nothing in your life. The grip of the usual must be broken.

Writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. Clear your thoughts, and write some sentences.

Verba volant, scripta manent.