@gurupanguji<p><strong>Our beautiful walled gardens of moral purity.</strong></p><blockquote><p>One day Gumroad is a symbol of independence. The next, it’s toxic. So what then—Stripe? Square? MyPillow? Ok, I went too far, that dude and his stupid pillow need to go away for good. What’s the exit strategy when every platform, store, app, whatever eventually fails our purity test?</p><p>…</p><p>Here’s what really gets me about that question: the assumption that someone else has already decided for us. “Did we decide…” Not “Should I use this?” or “What do you think about this platform?” but “What’s the verdict? What’s safe? What won’t get me excommunicated from the group?”</p><p>… </p><p>Not because I want to defend broken platforms or bad actors. But because I want to defend something bigger—something we’re at risk of losing: the ability to engage with people without exile. The ability to stay in dialogue—especially when we don’t see eye-to-eye. The ability to build, together, without requiring each other to pass a moral purity test every three months.</p><p><a href="https://brilliantcrank.com/our-beautiful-walled-gardens-of-moral-purity/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Our beautiful walled gardens of moral purity.</a></p></blockquote><p>This spoke to me. We have one life. As long as you are a kind person who attempts to leave the world a better place than you found it, you certainly don’t need to justify yourself to me or anyone else. I have stopped doing so. </p><p>None of this is easy. As someone went increasingly and unhealthily online, it’s a big personal change. For me, it comes from a place of diversion of attention. I stopped focusing on myself and asking myself what <strong>I</strong> think and filled it with other people’s opinions and their moral justification (which is performatory given it was driven by social media). Complete the feedback loop of tribal acknowledgements and I was caught in a vicious cycle. It resulted in a lack strong conviction, adoption of other people’s / tribe’s opinions accompanied by an erosion of intolerance to differences of them.</p><p>The only way I’ve fought against this is to follow a 3 step plan:</p><ul><li><em>Reduce external stimuli</em> – as much as I told myself that even podcasts were “fueling” my brain, the truth is that it was just reducing the time, space and opportunity to think and form original opinions and thoughts.</li><li><em>Replace social media with writing (and thinking)</em> – what happens when you have more time to think and process is that you start forming thoughts that need an outlet. I’ve first resorted to my physical journal (pen, paper). </li><li><em>Focus on writing on the blog</em>: This blog predates social media when I first developed my own CMS on geocities. I am a child of the blog and I’ve come back to sharing my own experiences here. </li></ul><p>The social media cycle entertained me but <em>numbed<strong> </strong></em>me. It was also the type of entertainment that made me feel yucky as anxiety kept building up while i never tackled what I had to process. </p><p>It’s hard to trust someone who’s been through a cleanse. They see clarity that’s hard to see for someone in the middle of the muck. There is a similar clarity that I will share one day when it comes to focusing on the physical aspects of your body too. </p><p>For now let’s just say that I am rejuvenated. I am rejuvenated to think and share those thoughts again. I am reading with a clearer mind, my focus is longer and stronger and I feel like myself again. </p><p>You should do what works for you. All the best. If you want to chat to me about it / share what you are going through, put it in the comments. </p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://gurupanguji.com/tag/cognitive-flexibility/" target="_blank">#cognitiveFlexibility</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://gurupanguji.com/tag/life/" target="_blank">#Life</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://gurupanguji.com/tag/mindful-living/" target="_blank">#mindfulLiving</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://gurupanguji.com/tag/philosophy/" target="_blank">#philosophy</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://gurupanguji.com/tag/thoughts/" target="_blank">#thoughts</a></p>