Quick Context
This was originally published on Substack back in December 31, 2023. Back then I was ruminating on my capabilities to finish my Capstone 1 subject (I really wasn’t sure if I would pass back then since there were a lot of students who repeat the subject).
Anyways, go read away.
Just wanted to provide some context for the parts where I mentioned “Substack”.
Hey friends, happy holidays!
I haven’t written anything in a long time, but I hope this is an at least ‘okay’ read during this cozy time.
And as for the reason you clicked this article — yes, you read that right. I’m quitting social media.
This decision, I must say, isn’t abrupt. I’ve been thinking of quitting social media for a while now. As of writing, my journal has 126 instances of the term “social media.” Suffice it to say that the internet is a huge part of my life. I’d lived on the internet for as long as I could imagine. I’ve grown with the internet, and I’ve voluntarily dedicated a huge chunk of my life to it.
Thanks to the internet, I met a lot of amazing people and developed quality relationships. But in between the kind and genuine interactions, I found myself frequently distraught, distracted, and anxious. The absence of novelty constantly made me twitch for digital stimulation.
See I could write an entire booklet about why I decided to quit, but the reasons are mainly twofold: 1) I want to focus more, 2) I need to grow.
This year, I’ll be facing huge academic challenges. I’ll be taking up my thesis subjects, otherwise known in our curriculum as Capstone 1 and Capstone 2. As I embark on my final year pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Multimedia Arts, it’s all the more important to manage my academic load alongside other responsibilities.
I want 2024 to be all about stepping back, but also about stepping forward.
I hope to lead a life without being bombarded by the distractions we face in the 21st century, and in doing so create more space for introspection and creativity.
Part of this goal is this newsletter, where I hope to cater to more genuine connections. In the digital space we occupy, I find it hard to enforce boundaries. It might just be me, but some days I want to be updated, some days not. And during those days that I don’t wanna, I still feel the tug of those stupid red badges on my screen.
And I do understand the efforts of the tech giants at implementing measures to counter overstimulation and information overload: almost all social media platforms have report, mute, and block features. Some even boast about the option to impose a time limit.
However, I find these insufficient.
Look, in all honesty, I can just stop writing this thing now and decide not to excessively use social media anymore. I can just turn off all of my notifications, disconnect from the internet, do something else, and call it a day. But it’s the way these businesses are built that drives me insane: my attention span gets productized. I could write more paragraphs about this phenomenon, but I feel other resources are more useful in providing the right data and information. So feel free to, well, learn more about it when it piques your interest. I recommend The Social Dilemma, a documentary you can watch on Netflix.
Regardless, I think I should do what I think I have to do, and that’s establishing what some may say is a draconian rule: no more social media (at least for now).
Right. Enough yapping. Where is this leading toward?
See, the internet has evolved to have a recency bias, where myopia seems to be the norm (h/t David Perell). It’s always the recent stuff that get pushed to our feeds. Bad or good information, doesn’t matter — it gets shoved in our faces.
This is why I’ve always liked newsletters: I can check in and out — and this is the most important part — just when I want or need to.
In quitting social media, I would be outside of the bubble where I could know what happens to whom — and that means I wouldn’t be able to put up Facebook and Instagram stories and posts anymore.
But what happens to my friends, family, relatives, and those who want to stay updated on my life? Exactly. This newsletter. I’ll be writing about the ‘shareworthy’ updates here, while the rest goes to my journal — so that you’ve no business seeing what I’m up to unless you actually want to.
But here’s an alternative: if you want to keep in touch with me in real-time and chat over quirky memes and cute cat photos (though my notifications would be mostly turned off), you can shoot me a message on Discord, where I’ll be spending most of my time hanging around. Otherwise, send me an email, which you can find on my Linktree.
Look, even if you gave a shit about what goes on in my life, I’m not saying you should subscribe to this newsletter. But if you care enough to stay updated, then subscribe. If you’re not that interested, then that’s fine — I encourage you not to subscribe. If you just want to intermittently check what I’m up to, then opt to view my newsletter editions without subscribing. Substack, as far as I know, would always be free — unless I start charging for life updates (which I would do if and only if I was Kim Kardashian or DJ Khaled).
Honestly, I’m not a fancy person who has tons of interesting things to say. I’m just a normal dude trying to get through life. This quitting social media thing’s all just so I could regain a bit of control in my life. For sure, I’d still struggle behind the scenes. My nights during hectic weeks at work and university would be just as long, and I’d be dreading nights when I couldn’t check what’s happening on the internet. I’ll be some sort of outlier, and that kinda sucks, but it has its advantages. With all that said, I’m confident to say I’m willing to sacrifice a little bit of convenience for what I think is a far nobler and more urgent goal: to enjoy life in the ‘now’.
And since we’re on this topic, I just thought it’d be fun to throw in a few paragraphs from my journal entry way back on May 22, 2023:
I’m feeling a deep existential dread, and I don’t know how to deal with it. Maybe I do know how to deal with it… I just don’t know how to communicate it with people.
It’s as if all that there is in life at the moment is what all there would be if I didn’t do anything else. If I didn’t build, I didn’t do the stuff that I actually want to do (what do I actually want to do?), and lead the life that I legitimately want.
It’s like… I’m experiencing an onset of a type of depression that makes me realize just how futile everything is. That there really is no meaning to everything that I’m doing since nothing of this would ever matter in the long run. People would keep being people, time would keep being time, and all the feelings that ever existed would continue to be feelings that exist, yet I won’t be here to see them. And I don’t want to live forever, either. I just… want to leave something worthwile – something impossible, given the scale at which the human experience exists.
Life can never be as beautiful as it is now, and life can never be as good as I could make it to be now. There is something really humbling about the fact that I will never experience this very second that I’m experiencing now – down to the smallest of the smallest of the smallest duration we could measure. Everything that is now would eventually be part of the past. There is no staying here, and no experiencing life again.
Does this not give me a sense of urgency? Does this not make me think, “Fuck, I have to live.”
I remember a quote from Dr. Jordan Peterson who said, “That’s the thing about life — you’re all in.” Or something like that. We’re all in. There’s no going back. Life is going to be just as wretched as it would be if we didn’t try to find the noblest cause of all and make life as good as we possibly can.
There are no ifs, buts – I have to. It’s the only shot I have. It’s the only shot I would ever have.
There’s no saying, “I don’t want this anymore.” There’s nothing like that. We’re forced to face everything in life, because it’s the only choice we have:
“You don’t have to like it to work with it—to use it to your advantage. But it starts by seeing it clearly and accepting it unconditionally. Amor fati— a love of what happens. Because that’s your only option."
"Schopenhauer quotes an analogy from the Roman playwright Terence when he says that “life is a game of dice. Even if you don’t throw the number you like, you still have to play it and play it well."
"The world around you, it is what it is. The events that happen, they are what they ar.e The people in your life, they’ll do what they do. Accept them. Understand them. Empathize with them.”
*All quotes come from Ryan Holiday’s piece from The Daily Stoic.
While my online presence may be limited from here on, I’m thrilled about the opportunities that this change will bring. I hope this thing I’m gonna be doing will bring more achievements, challenges, and discoveries, which I could share in this newsletter.
And before I sign off, I invite you to perhaps engage in something of the same sort: reflect on your digital habits, and on the role that social media plays in your life. It’s no joke that most of us are what some may call ‘chronically online’. Maybe, just maybe, you could discover a fresh perspective or at least something to ruminate on this 2024.
For now, I think that’s it. I’ll see you around — or not!