(Not edited; maybe next time. Hahaha.)
The idea that the enframing of technology is pithy for our existential wisdom is becoming clearer, though I am unsure whether I still agree with the thought of its dangers. I realised, upon putting down my phone after searching through Instagram quickly after having been ‘pinged’ by a Messenger notification, that if one does not think about it, that is if one does not make thoughts before, during, and after the act of picking up the phone and engaging with this technology, then it would be essentially nothing. The act itself is null. Think, for example, the phenomenon of ‘doomscrolling’: one goes through a series of countless of posts with no thought in mind. Sure, there would be a few that one might be reminded of some time later or right after the activity, but a lot of them would pass through the senses—the eyes would see it, the ear would catch the sounds, the skin would feel the gadget—but they would become void, for the mind cannot remember and process them all. Hence, people feel a sense of emptiness, as though they had wasted their time, after such an activity because at the end of it, they get nothing.
There is a movement that presents invitations for documenting one’s life and many of these say that doing so is important so that the fullness of life would be made concrete. The idea is that most events are easily forgotten and so life could just slip by without one realising how eventful it has been. Without the effort to ‘document’, to make concrete memories, then the past may seem as though it had never been. Think of stories about someone losing their memories—to them, none of the things that had happened in the past matters.
Yet it may also be important to realise how easy it is to rethink memories. A bad experience at a certain age may be reflected upon later on and seen in a new light. Here all that had changed are thoughts. The process is entirely mental but it may mean the difference between someone with a zeal for life and someone ready to jump off a bridge.
I propose we try to see here how our relationship with technology reminds us of how we may approach life. While the idea behind actively documenting one’s life is wonderful on its own, its reverse is also potent. If we can easy numb our minds and ‘forget’ through an activity we do almost every possible time, then maybe the same stories, the memories that we would tell ourselves most frequently can also be just as easily let go of if, like those half-minute videos, we realise that they are not as significant as we may have been making them out to be.
The idea behind their significance is then the next matter to consider. Why should one forget about something that had happened before just because they are not good? There are many good reasons to do so, but that is not the point. We may begin with this instead: why does anything need to have a particular meaning or story behind it, whether that is as good or as something bad? It seems straightforward to view one event as the cause for another; hence, the purpose of narratives is clear if we are trying to form an understanding of life on a level before the metaphysical. However, this level may not be where the truth lies, for it is so easy to prove one narrative right to serve a particular purpose and intention and have its exact opposite to be just as valid. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure—and in both cases, the item is just an item, a tool, that holds no power on its own, just like how technology can easily cease to be be if there were no humans utilising it.
Where then is the truth? Let us look back on memories. Which memories do we remember most? How much weight and importance do we put on these? How about those memories that we cannot recall for whatever reason—how can we tell whether they truly are of a different level of existential significance than those memories we can think about?
There is this idea called the ‘butterfly effect’ which says that even the smallest things can cause the most phenomenal consequences—how many small causes have slipped our minds and unknowingly affected the greatest changes to our lives?
I do not think it is essentially to know the answers, if there even are any, though they do inspire curiosity. The point of these questions is to serve as reminders of the endless uncertainties that there are and perhaps to allow those to present this proposition: given the uncertainties, that may ultimately amount to everything being nothing, how would you rather think and live?
Things like probabilities and evaluations give the illusion of a ‘correct answer’—“I choose to do this activity because of x, y, z reasons according to a, b, c. The chances of its success are n.” Yet what may escape all these theorising is accountability. The most corrupt politicians use the same means of rationalisation in keeping a country impoverished that may stop one from recognising themselves to be more than where and how they were born. An ‘educational’ YouTube video comes in the same variety of styles as a ‘useless’ video.
If you cannot attribute to your past, nor to a future that is nonexistent, whatever it is that you are doing at this moment, would you still proceed? In what manner would you do so?
If none of the meanings that you give to events, circumstances, phenomena, details, etc., can be truly validated, which of them would you still hold?
This is not to call for absurdism. I think that is just another narrative. But perhaps it may be worth something to try to think from a place of nothingness every so often—no past nor future or even present—so we can feel once again the centre from which anything can come about.