Over the weekend, I ran a test on social media – a social experiment, really. I wanted to see how the algorithm works.
I created a controversial post about the destruction of an ancient temperate rainforest near where I live.
I had been frustrated by the performative spirituality I kept seeing online, and I spoke to a ranger who worked in this forest. He told me they had to fence it off to stop people trampling over rare mosses, lichens, and plants. During lockdown, the footfall had become so extreme that it was causing real damage.
As soon as I posted it, people responded. The title grabbed their attention. They read my words and engaged. Soon, there were hundreds of likes and many comments. Most were positive, cheering me on for saying what others wouldn’t.
Some people accused me of being judgmental and hypocritical, but that’s par for the course. That’s what happens as soon as you have the balls to put your work into the world.
It was interesting to observe myself in the process. The feelings it brought up were highly stimulating.
A few years ago, I vowed not to write for the algorithm. I didn’t want to get caught in the hamster wheel of churning out bland posts just for the sake of it. I also aimed to avoid using hacks and tricks to reach my audience.
Instead, I use social media to post my daily writing because I write every day. That is my profession. I am a professional author, and yet most of the time my writing goes nowhere because I am not trying to game the system.
The test was to see what it would take to increase a post’s distribution. What I found is that controversy, poking people in the eyes, being deliberately provocative – these get you distribution and it is incredibly easy to get reach online by being provocative. In hindsight that was pretty obvious really!
The first post, on the Saturday, was an anecdotal story about my issues with what I call performance spirituality – this fakeness, this pretence that people are deeply connected and enlightened.
It did what I thought it would: it got out in front of my social media followers, but it also caused friction.
It caused stimulation in my mind/body, and I found myself constantly checking the comments to make sure the twits hadn’t come in and completely taken over the party.
As I said, most people were incredibly supportive, and it was good to hear that I wasn’t some crazy grumpy old man in the corner pissing on other people’s parties.
I had expressed a sentiment that resonated with others, but it also landed uncomfortably for some.
Because of the negative comments (the attacks), I hid them as soon as I found them. I don’t block or ban people unless they’re complete psychopaths, but I will hide abusive and inflammatory comments. I don’t want people coming to my defence, which is often what happens, and a pissing contest starting.
The next day, Sunday, I used the accusation of being judgemental to write another post – this one even more inflammatory. I consciously included two particular groups of people to target, because I knew some of them would be triggered, would engage, which in turn would push the post out to more people.
By the end of the day, having managed multiple fires that post had caused, I sat with my felt sense, with my body. My head had enjoyed it. It was stimulating – the dopamine and cortisol were fully flowing. But my body was not in a good place. The feelings were melancholic, bordering depressive.
Recently I went to a stand up to racism protest. We stood face to face with literal fascists – people I find incredibly difficult to be around because of their beliefs, their ideologies, their agenda, which is not unity or coming together but total division. There is no possibility of dialogue.
In my youth and into my middle years, I was an activist. My activism got me into a lot of trouble, not only with my own government but with the U.S. government too.
I have felt the boot of the state come down on my throat when certain lines are crossed and it’s terrifying.
At this protest it felt very similar to those social media posts. I was stimulated by the collective energy – arsey and a bit argy-bargy, like cheering on your team at a sports match. There’s a collective buzz.
But again, when I left, something didn’t sit right. It was dark. As I sat with my feelings that day and the next, I felt the same sense of melancholy of the black dogs. I could feel a looming depression, a despair, and I knew – for me, not for you, this is my story – that conflict and fighting usually only serve the self.
Our heads tell us that ideologically we’re doing it for the culture, for society, for a better world. Whatever the delusional narrative we spin to make us feel right.
But it always comes back to: how does it feel? Was change really made in those moments? Or was division and hatred stimulated?
Did the conflict cause more toxicity? And was the binary thinking that our ideologies create fed and strengthened?
I learnt a lot from the protest, from those provocative posts. I learnt that there are better ways to affect change in the world. I already knew that; this was an algorithmic test after all.
For me, those ways are slower, calmer, quieter, and more peaceful. To engage with the chaos and madness of fools in this world, the fools being you, me, and everyone else.
Because there is no get-out clause here, we are all collaborators. We are all part of the chaos.
If we are to move towards a brighter future, on a planet that is dying, in a world we treat like those people treated the temperate rainforest. With our heads telling us one thing, our actions doing the complete opposite – then something has to shift. The buck stops with us, and pointing fingers is too easy.
The purpose of this post? I’m not sure: to get something off my chest, perhaps. To share a bit of ordinary wisdom from having lived some experiences.
Let’s explore where the future leads when we set aside our beliefs and ideas. This way, we can engage with the living world directly, as it is, not through our own concepts.
A world that is beautiful, mysterious, and awe-filled.
A world that resists knowing when we approach it solely through our heads, along with all its clever intellectual and ideological smugness.
As the ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi said: ‘the learned do not know’.