I still remember how life was before quarantine, being carefree and indifferent to the big problems of the world; living life through the highs of today rather than the worries of tomorrow. And many people say that quarantine made kids grow up too fast, showing them that the world isn’t a perfect place, rather a collection of imperfect ideas that when looked at from the right angle gives the illusion of tranquility. An illusion that was broken in seconds. When people say this, they usually mean it negatively, as if to say being older is being thrust into a world with problems, without the solutions. And I completely agree with this, but is it such a bad thing? As people, we naturally feel lost when there’s nothing we’re working towards, like a big promotion, a group project, or a nonprofit cause. But children haven’t developed this sense of self-awareness. Naturally, as we get older, this universal fact becomes clearer and even self-evident. I feel lucky that I got a taste for this dur...
Biologically speaking, we feel good when certain chemicals are released in our body. We typically associate artificially stimulating this release system as “getting high,” through taking drugs or smoking or whatnot. Society has done a good job, at least where I grew up, of emphasizing the stigma around these things. Life revolves around feeling these “highs,” regardless of whether we induce them artificially or they arise naturally. You could argue that our goal in life is purely to feel good, and evolution has used this motivator to get us to do things necessary for survival: eat, sleep, fall in love, be social, etc. But as humans got smarter, everything shattered. One of the first things to fall was eating habits. Once people realized that sugar is what provides the “high” after eating, it became the center of all food. All these years later, we see the same thing happening with social media. Apps have targeted the exact part of social interactions that make them pleasurable (sp...
