The illusion of social networks

We post photos or stories and try to attract people’s attention to our looks or activities, without realizing that the one in the photo is not “me”, but just a temporary, borrowed material identity.

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Imagine that one of your friends posted a fake photo in her profile. She starts to attract a lot of friends and followers because of the photo, and from there she starts to build up her profile with other fake photos. She thinks he is quite successful by making “her” profile popular and having now thousands of admirers, but you think, what’s the point of doing so? These people are attracted to something else, not to her. She is just spending her energy uselessly in attracting people’s attention to what is essentially a lie. One day, the lie will be discovered and her profile will be locked-up or deleted, resulting in frustration.

It may look foolish, but that’s actually what the whole world is doing at the moment. We post photos or stories of “ourselves” and try to attract people’s attention to our looks or activities, without realizing that the one in the photo is not “me”, but just a temporary, borrowed material identity I’m currently identifying with. We seek attention, validation, and support, but the people who come to us through these types of posts don’t know who we really are, and most of them don’t even care. All they care about is this temporary identity they are attracted to.

Some of us are more attracted to their looks and spend time grooming the body and finding the best poses and filters to create filtered, idealized images that others may find attractive. Others are more into action, posting stories about what they do and what they achieve. They try to project the image of a well-resolved and successful person, and attract followers. That’s again an idealized image; if they were to show all their struggles and imperfections, people would not be so interested. Finally, others post about their intellectual pursuits and mental creations. In one sense, they are better than the other two, but still, the mind is an external covering, and the products of the mind and intelligence are not “us”. The carefully crafted image of an intellectual is also a false identity.

Another problem with these fabricated, filtered, and fundamentally false images we create is that they entangle other people. They simply add new layers of illusion to the already precarious material situation they find themselves in. Before, people would compare themselves with other people, their neighbors, co-workers, friends, etc. – real people – and would feel they were not so bad, because everyone had their struggles. Nowadays, however, we compare ourselves with idealized images projected by others, especially with the most successful, which are pushed by the algorithms. We get then the impression that everyone is beautiful, everyone is intelligent, everyone is successful, everyone has wonderful, fulfilling lives, except us.

The most powerful weapon of Māyā is not material enjoyment. This we may give up after enjoying for some time. The most powerful weapon is not abundance, but scarcity. When we feel miserable, incomplete, unhappy, and the world flaunts images of successful people in front of us, that’s when material illusion becomes stronger. This feeling of being left behind and the strong urges it provokes, that’s where illusion gets us, and that’s precisely what the algorithms of social networks have to offer.

We live countless lives in this material world, and in each life, we accept a different “me”. In each life, we spend our energy trying to promote this temporary, borrowed identity, composed of body, mind, intelligence, and ego, nourishing it and comparing it to others’ just to be forced to leave in the end. Worse still is that before we leave, we are forced to observe the whole process of decay of the body, observing how it becomes old, wrinkled, and unattractive. Painfully noticing people who, before, worshiped us by “our” beauty or intelligence, becoming indifferent and turning away.

Instead of spending time promoting this false identity, just to be frustrated in the end, our mission in human life is to find our real, eternal identity, and learn how to connect with it, becoming gradually detached from this material identity, that in the end was created just to bring us frustration.

How to free ourselves from these negative aspects of social networks? Difficult to say. We can repeat the old discourse of ditching social networks, but very few will do that. Apart from that, the same social networks are also used to keep in contact with other devotees and friends, and we can use them to bring Krsna Consciousness to others, as I try to do. The best solution is probably a balanced approach, following good friends, people we care about, as well as others who post useful content, and gradually unfollow, unfriend, block, or restrict the rest. It probably also helps to find useful content outside of the social networks, going more to the old-fashioned websites, signing up for mailing lists we receive by email (like the one we offer), and so on. In this way, we can reduce our time on social networks and get useful interactions out of the time we spend there, instead of just new layers of material illusion.

Apart from that, however, there is the positive side: increasing and improving our spiritual practice. Hear more, chant more, study more, try to really understand and apply the spiritual science. Associate with devotees who inspire us, try to find a mentor who is available to help us on the spiritual path. Try to find good friends who care about us as a soul (not as a body or mind), who are not just interested in engaging us in their projects, but who really care about us. This is what can make the difference and bring real improvement to our spiritual practice, which is, in the end, the only thing that is truly valuable in this world, and the only thing that can bring us freedom.

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