Who Are You Without Being Seen?

PRATIMA SHARMA

The first thing we touch in the morning is not our thoughts, not how we feel, but our phones. We scroll before our eyes are ready to witness the social world. We are so much immersed in how many likes, comments, and engagement our content received that we published last night on Instagram, Facebook, and other social handles. We start with WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the cycle doesn't end. We don't bother about waking up with calmness, relaxing ourselves with the serotonin flashing from the sunlight and sipping the greenery through the fresh air.

Have we really lost reality? Do you ever sit alone and actually try to understand what you are doing? Why do you think there's a constant need to check the mobile? Why are you so much excited about anticipated messages, and why do you constantly switch apps, procrastinating even the important tasks until you reach one day before the deadline? Why is there a need to portray that you know everything digitally? Why do we edit our lives to make it look perfect on social media? Our minds are preoccupied with which songs should I use the next time I post a story, which clothes, which background, and what to expect. All of this is pre-decided inside the mind, and we are so much present online, almost like 24/7. But do we understand that it's equally important to be present in where we are?

Our identity is slowly shifting outside because of the validation that feels rewarding, coming from the audience digitally, and the mind needs dopamine, so we chase likes, followers, and connection on a superficial level. We seek a space to feel that we belong somewhere, and somehow, unaware of how, we become such perfectionists that the image on our social handles looks so flawless that we tend to stay disconnected from what we truly are. The potential gap between what we are and how we are appearing to be.

Every one of us is happy, intelligent, knowledgeable, curious, empathetic, trustworthy. Life is so smooth inside the social walls, open in the air, that we are disgusted with who we are. We avoid the talk with our inner selves, we feel numb because we scroll, because we don't have time to sit with what we are feeling deeply. We suppress, and it just continues.

Don't you feel the reduced ability in our thinking lately? We are replacing our creativity with chatbots, and we lack growth because there is no discomfort at all, because we have all the sources that validate every action of ours.In the game of avoiding ourselves, we really are winning. We are not just addicted to our screens but are escaping the silence to meet our truest self.

When was the last time you sat without your phone? When did you last think without using Google? When did you last recall and use things that you studied? Do you know who you are without being seen?

The problem isn't the screen in our hands. We do need it, we do need social handles and AI, but let's please reduce the distance it has created within us. Because the more we seek ourselves outside, the more we lose touch with who we are within.