#satvb 2023

i dont mean to alarm anyone but….

"Ok, I got a couple of things I want to say. Number one: social media teaches us that we're nothing more than a collection of preformed weaknesses and adopted pathologies to be mined for sympathy from total strangers, but this isn't true. Ex...exclamation mark. The best place to look for affirmation and love is from your in-person friends and family. Thank you. From the people around you. Even here tonight, we're all surrounded by people we have a mutual attachment with. And I'm really thankful for that. Thank you. Thank you. Number two: With all the time we can—no—with all...with all the time we do spend on social media you start to feel like you're alone, even when you're surrounded by other people. Everyone becomes so focused on how to document their specific experience that they forget to have an actual experience in the first place. Facts. Whatever selfie you can manage to take becomes the memory you have, but tonight I want to try a different kind of memory. With your permission, I want you to turn to the person next to you and introduce yourself. This is fucking real life right now. Ok, that's enough. Don't do that. It's cringe. It's cringe-filled. Number three: I think if we spend enough time online reading infographics about and looking at people's perfectly edited photos that you can start to believe that there's no such thing as a negative emotion, and that we're somehow to exist in an endless state of valid, affirmed, paid attention to, liked, that every disagreement we have is somehow a form of literal violence against us. But if we spend out entire lives doing nothing but avoiding plan and conflict, then we're dooming ourselves and our entire lives alone. Every relationship is bound to have rough patches, the willingness to endure them comes from understanding that pain and suffering are completely unavoidable. The only thing we can do is build resilience to endure the inveitable.