The Fallacy of Self-Worth (Egosystems)

“Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

– Oscar Wilde (De Profundis)

This is a new found world that I find difficult to adjust to and it is often for the same reason that I go off my social media accounts for weeks at a stretch. These days everyone is a guru in the making, everyone has an opinion and validated or not – everyone has news to share. I often find it strange that people want others to be privy of little things like where they are watching a movie or where they got their measly sandwich from. I won’t be surprised if tomorrow a new rage for posting your bowel pictures catches up and you have youngsters sharing the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of their food.

The era of think before you speak is long gone. I find it hard to cope with people who say something, not because they feel inclined to contribute but because they feel compelled to, as if their silence would be shameful in the strata of society that they dwell in.

Most people you come across are wearing a mask. No one has the patience to explore what lies beneath. No one cares about how dark and troubled your insides are as long as there is a smile pasted on the mask you are sporting that day. The vanity runs paramount and one’s true worth is only determined by the value of one’s attire that day. There is a needless craving and desire to be appreciated. It is easier to manipulate people these days than ever before for most of us are just social urban vampires, sucking on compliments and closing on any ray of light that may stream through their blindfolds.

The heightened idea of realizing one’s worth has scaled new fictitious heights, just as the mankind overall has sunk to abysmal new depths. Our focus from real issues has been clouded by what’s been trending and what other people are following, sharing or liking.

I am not against social media and certainly not against the power of virtual mobocracy. I support the notion of mass media and have faith in its ability to influence and form the opinion of an entire nation. What I can’t condone is the blind fan following that is shaping and breaking the psyche of this entire generation of living population. The social media is dishing out untried recipes, propagating self medication, doling out unsolicited advise and directing masses to fraudulent legal, political or religious literature, not to mention unfiltered, unrestricted access to degenerated, perverted heaps of pictures and videos with little or no checks on the incoming stream.

We are replacing our natural behavior of interactions in a physical environment with a virtual system of delusions that supports a person’s overinflated sense of self-worth and importance. The ego-system is the new ecosystem and the fallacy of self-worth is determined by the number of likes you have garnered on a recent picture that you posted and not by what you have achieved in life or the merits you have won or the education you have been privileged to receive.

My reflection on this issue that I perceive with the modern world, sadly has no silver bullet solution. It is the struggle that we all continue to live with. Everyone needs to develop their own counter measure. For now, I will restrict my usage and not fall prey to any piece of advise or news that is not backed by a credible resource. The picture below sums it up well.