Have no wonder and it will shine, the leaking darkness inside Gripped with vitriol and tamed, the anxiety reaches all the mind Holding onto some hope or dream, desperate to achieve before “the” time Dopamine kicks and all the memes, leaving nothing left for patience “Is it all as it seems? Or am I left with the devices to resume my frustration?” The racing of the mind and the spacious emptiness creates anxiety that cannot leave anyone at all. Anyone so consumed with news, and words, and memes, and conspiracies. The compulsive stations of the brain running nonstop until the contagious situation frees itself into yet another wave of temptation and the subsequent sensation… The inspiration and motivation of the writer falters not because of will or want or aptitude, It fails in the eyes of the ever present Feed. Always drifting in and out of those who see it without realizing how drugged they become until it is all but too easy to delude. Dancing on the graves of the fathers, and the islands of the ancestors… Living between time on every preplanned line…
What are your thoughts on this poem?
My Thoughts on Poem
Written in January of 2021 this is clearly a poem about social media and “The Media” in general. After 2020 and so much assimilation to screens for work folks found themselves on their phones, their laptops, and TVs more often than not. This was already a problem prior to the pandemic, but it was exacerbated when there was nowhere to go, especially when one was sick.
The Feed was inspired by the various shows and movies navigating this conundrum that is social media and the name that fit the best was “the feed”. People go to their social media feed on Twitter or Facebook to drink from the trough of information. The dopamine kicks in, and that is all they know. One like, one share, one comment. It drives out excitement through the roof at times. We see only what others what us to see though. It is all an illusion and most of it is preplanned minutes to days before. If it was not prepped for in advance, it is heavily edited before we get to see the final product.
I spend a lot of time scrolling through Reddit and news articles on my phone. It is a way to pass the time during commercials for shows, or while waiting on a game to load. It is a way to make an awkward moment more ignorable, or apprise myself on the latest drama in whatever topics I follow. I try to make my time scrolling valuable to me but focusing on current events and fun facts, but we all know that sometimes the force to fixate on scrolling gets the better of us.
Take Away
Social media is created to be addictive. We all need to find a way to balance the usefulness of such technology without engaging in the endless posts in their feeds. There is nothing greater than the desire to be free from addiction, and Americans in particular are addicted to every decadent thing known to man. We as a society need to be more cognizant of our actions and recognize what we can do to better ourselves.