Happy Wednesday folks. I’ve got a short one for you today. It was originally much longer, but I cut the rambling section about e-girls. I think I might have to get our dear friend Crooner, resident e-girl expert, on the pod to talk about that instead of just emailing it out.  Here are a few things I’ve been chewing on… Videos of you crying in your car. Since I was laid off (why does ‘laid off’ always read like a cope, even if it’s true?), I’ve fallen into a strange habit. I monologue in voice memos, then listen to them back. Listening to my own voice is vital part of the process—maybe even more so than communicating with another person—it’s like it makes whatever I’m saying more real. If not more real, somehow easier to understand. I’m working something out for myself, even if the intention is to share it with an audience. Recently, a friend of mine shared a personal tragedy of his with me. I’m not going to mince words here, it was among the most disturbing things I’ve ever heard in my life. It was the first and hopefully only time in my life that my immediate reaction was to throw up. The next day was rough. My usual coping mechanisms–joking about it, rationalizing it, talking to him about it, even simply putting it out of my mind, something I’m maybe too good at–didn’t work. Until I started thinking of it as a plot point in a movie. My friend’s life was a grand, sprawling narrative. I began imagining him like he was a character in a film. Suddenly, what he’d shared with me was easier to accept. It was just a movie. And in the moments I wouldn’t let myself understand it as a movie, I couldn’t handle it. So eventually, I leaned into the movie more: What’s the beginning of his story? What music is playing? When do the credits roll? I let myself have it–it was better than the alternative. When I flip through my FYP on TikTok, which is these days exclusively a mix of character acting (you know the type) and people crying in their cars, I can’t help but think about these two things. I have reached a point where I am incapable of interpreting my life as anything other than media. Truly, media has become an extension of myself. I can’t emotionally regulate without it. Are the myriad videos of women having meltdowns narcissism per se, or is turning your emotions into media the only way to experience catharsis? Body dysmorphia. It’s so easy to forget sometimes that you aren’t your digital avatar—even if your avatar is completely composed of text, even if it only exists as an online voice—that in some people, I think it creates dysphoria. You look in the mirror and you aren’t how you imagined the character you created online looks, and so the disappointment you feel is similar to the disappointment you felt when your favorite book character isn’t the way you imagined him in the movie. It’s not about filters. It’s about being in too much control of your own narrative. You’re a free subscriber to Default Wisdom. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber.
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