Disconnecting from society

Reconnection failed…reconnection pending…system initialisation in progress…

Error 2024 not found.

Okay, enough with the computer puns as there’s somebody at the door, and it’s 2025. In all seriousness, the years are turning into a blink and miss affair, I still believe someone hit pause on the music in 2020 and we’re yet to hit play again. Maybe 2025 is that year, I can only hope. Well done you on making it this far! I hope this year has been fruitful or at least not too taxing, however, I can’t help but feel those words might ring hollow for a lot of people out there, sadly.

So, this is a half wrap up, half look to the future article to end the year, but what does that have to do with the chosen title? Like so many things now, it’s a hybrid, plugged into some piece of technology almost on a permanent basis. Technology is draining, people are draining – the incessant need to be connected all the time has us overwhelmed and exhausted. Believe me, after this article, I’m looking forward to a well-earned break and disconnect.

Returning to my themes for this year from my opening article, “Get busy living or get busy dying”, it has been a calendar full of “specific”, “personal”, and “challenge”. From exploring my deepest fear to outsourcing my sanity, and realising the show must go on – with or without me. QWAN also passed the 200 mark, and this once again provided an opportunity for me to learn how to celebrate my wins, no matter how big or small they seem, something which I personally struggle with – as I keep feeling like there’s still so much for me to do and achieve before I can start to feel good about things.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest, personal challenge I faced in 2024 was taking on a greater caring role for my physical ailing mother, which I wrote about in “Caring for others and caring for yourself”. It has certainly been a test of both our inner resolves although I’m more than aware that I’m not the one going through it. This year, I’ve been confronted with mortality more than in any other year of my life, both my own and that of loved ones, the inescapable nature of human frailty, fragility and death, and what Gandalf would say, “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

A perfect place to disconnect. Photo by JP Valery on Unsplash.

Back to the “disconnect”, it’s not only to signal a break from my writing that I usually take over this period, but to highlight a growing feeling of genuine separation from the society in which I inhabit. There’s a reason why I wrote “reconnection failed” in the subtitle followed by pending and a reboot. The only way I feel I’ll connect with this modern world is by a full system reconfiguration, and I’m not sure I want that nor do I think it’s the best idea, hence the pending.

Maybe a temporary disconnect is what I need to realise that I’ve trying in all the wrong places, or in the wrong way. There are many reasons for poor connection quality (outside of your telco provider). Weak strength as a result of lack of compatibility or distance between two points, or perhaps you’ve tried to connect too many times and now you’re permanently locked out. Happens all the time, and with technology it’s usually an easy fix – with people and society the solution is not so readily forthcoming.

“I’m always open to the idea of how I might be wrong, just it seems I’m one of the few people playing this game.”

Perhaps it’s not disconnection, but more connection that is necessary. As I wrote in “Engaging with life”, the soul yearns to express and connect, and it’s quite possible I need to keep on expressing (and improve on my articulation) as well as maintain the search for like-minded and similar-hearted souls. In a life-affirming Nietzschean manner, it’s about living fully in its entirety, and embracing, not retreating, from that. It’s difficult to reason someone to this point of view, they must see it for themselves that life is worth affirming.

So, what to expect in 2025? Much like how our mental health is not so much within you, in your psyche – it's more your existence in relation to the future and other people – my aim is to improve my optimism and hope for the upcoming 12 months and humanity in general. The heroic hermit that I am struggles with such things – I mean, look at this article, alternating between courage and withdrawal. Have I expected too much? Do I need to lessen my desires? How does one find peace and contentment in a world riddled with anxiety, stress and depression? I will find a way to answer all these questions – perhaps I’ve already partially done so! – or maybe I’ll just have more questions haha

I’m not going to lie, I’ve always felt like I needed to (and it was required of me to) take the burdens of the world onto my back and carry them forward, but perhaps in 2025 I’ll learn to take a step back (or maybe I’ll finally be rewarded for it).

The social media side of my creative work is stagnant no matter what I do and how much and often I post. It feels like a lot of hard work for not much return, it doesn’t seem to matter if I post regularly or if I change it up, and I refuse to pay $65 a post just so people see it. So, I’m really relying on you all to help read/view, appreciate and spread my good work around. I thank you all who have done so, and I appreciate the discussions and feedback which generate as a result.

I constantly feel like I’m having to overcome something or someone – and thankfully as humans we’re designed to overcome – but it really does for endless. The rise of people who are like “I’m miserable and unhappy or suffering so you have to be as well/no one can be happy” or “you must (not) like it or you’re a bad person”, just seem to thrive sucking the joy out of people’s lives going around guilting and shaming everybody else. Politicians, corporations, media, social media…all doing their best, it seems, to create a world not conducive to positive emotion. It’s so wearing even for those with the greatest resilience. Small wonder I have a desire to disconnect haha.

I feel 2025 will be another trying year, but I will do my best and have faith that life will be better, and that peace and contentment can be arrived at. I will keep emanating a universal light despite the temptation to just give in and join the shit-throwing contest we call modernity. I’m not a fan of desecration and, after all, “what man is a man who does not make the world better.”

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

May it be pleasant and full of joy with loved ones.

Until we meet again,

Martyn

P.S. A quick note on the sad passing of writer John Marsden, most famous for his "Tomorrow, When the War Began" series, which were a highlight of my youth reading. A great writer and a great man who will be sadly missed, but who went out on his terms - writing at his desk.

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