A Time to Weep
Dear friend,
I made a mistake.
After a coaching client, I had a break of a couple of hours. Sitting at my desk, I opened my laptop and clicked on a YouTube short, then another, and so it went on.
I saw shorts of TV shows where bullies get their comeuppance, and young men being arrested on the streets of London by groups of police. Some armed. GoPro footage of people jumping off high places with parachutes. Store clerks wrestling armed robbers to the floor. Security guards restraining shoplifters. It went on and on, and somehow, it was fascinating and hollow at the same time.
A hunger for meaning and relevance and connection grew, along with anxiety, as the scrolling continued. It was like eating, but each mouthful increased the empty feeling inside.
I went into a trance during which the last light of the day receded without me noticing.
An hour of my life was consumed by the algorithm. Sucked out of me, by a corporation that extracts value and pays little back in.
I made myself a coffee. Breathed. After the coffee, I went outside and walked amongst the people thronging the High Road. Brought myself back.
I won’t be doing that again in a hurry.
Chiara came home from her teaching role at RADA. She’s drawing on the work of Alison, a mentor and friend. The work draws on the relational aspect of our universe.
That things only exist in relationship.
The very theory I’m reading about from Carlo Rovelli.
I told her about the YouTube incident. We wondered what it’s like for young minds to be exposed to irresponsible algorithms. She was deeply moved by two of her students, both of whom had previously struggled with her classes but were beaming today. She’s deeply moved.
“I’m always crying,” she says, tears streaming down her face as she cradles a cup of tea.
“It’s a time to weep,” is all I have to offer.
Even though I deliberately avoid news, it’s impossible not to glean what is happening as the hollow men preen and pronounce and bully and rip at the fabric of a world they cannot understand.
How must it be to have not a single true friend in the world?
It is a time to weep.
Our bodies can process any emotion they can create.
It’s natural that people are worried and afraid when faced with such insanities as we see paraded across our screens. I pray for peace.
Maybe pray isn’t a word you’d use.
Perhaps affirm is less loaded.
Affirm that peace is sanity.
That we can switch off the algorithms.
Build new places.
Inside our hearts.
Inviting in stillness.
It radiates out.
This is a relational universe.
Each thought of peace and reconciliation is a real ripple.
It was a mistake to give my life force to an algorithm fine-tuned to suck it out of me.
Vampire-like.
Ghoulish.
We have choices.
We always have those.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey