Nor a poem, neither a prose. This piece is somewhere in between and my literary skill is incompetent to categorise it. It is an honest attempt to nudge people to wake up from the drool of social media and claim ourselves back. Make genuine, personal connections and build a human community. Please read on:
I’ve built a house
A big one with a huge backyard
Overlooking deer grazing beyond the fence
I have a family of four with a big dog
I take the dog for a walk, go for my run, pick up kids, work at the office, do the laundry and have sex with my partner
My life is perfect
And I convince myself that my life is happy within the boundaries of my huge backyard.
And somewhere down the line
The chemicals in my body start wearing off
It’s not giving me the same high which it used to give
The endorphins and oxytocin are getting push backs as I face conflicts within the boundaries of the backyard
I have practically lost all physical contact with the world outside and am shy to make the attempt to organise a social visit.
It’s not just me
It’s also the family living next door and the door next.
I look for a higher dosage of dopamine and the rest of the chemicals
And I open the laptop and join the group of society which lies beyond the backyard
I see what they are doing
Post what I am doing
Occasionally like or love their activities
And soon enough, I am having virtual conversations with human beings at large
The “likes” give a high to my dopamine
The news of my lost Boyfriend gives another high with my endorphins
And soon I realise I need more and more of the adulation.
The world becomes smaller and yet I find I am still within the boundaries of my backyard.
I took away my time and the social media pioneers get all the work done tapping on my chemical imbalance.
If only I took the effort to call and step outside my own backyard
If only I caught the play of chemicals in my own body
If only I took accountability
I would have spared myself of being
The modern day slave.
– after studying the advent of social media and pondering on why has it become so popular? Is it time to claim our time back. The “I” is a fiction. But I am a modern slave too. Lots of love