Navigating the Noise: Finding Authenticity in a World of Influencers

Be Careful Who You Listen To

Be careful who you listen to. Yes, that includes me. I don’t pretend to know everything. In fact, I tend to think I don’t know much at all.

In every moment, it’s fascinating to observe how many choices we are making. These choices shape our lives, our characters, and our capacities. Everything around us influences these choices, but how many are truly our own? How many are merely the result of our schooling, the media, the TV shows, and advertising we consume, or even the area we grew up in?

The Power of Influence

We are often easily influenced by skillfully curated campaigns from big companies, political parties, or entire industries. These entities aim to confuse us and align us with their agendas. We are bombarded by stories designed to influence our choices in most moments. It can feel like we are walking through a real-life video game, with trillion-dollar industries hunting for our attention at every turn. Over time, it's easy to become a product of our environment, merely relaying the information we consume.

I’ve noticed that the less someone has done in life, the less they’ve lived freely, the more they think they know. It’s a tricky trap and a slippery slope. While we can't know all the sources of the information we receive, we must be aware that all of it has an agenda and a bias to push.

Media Manipulation

Take The Saturday Paper, for example. I used to enjoy it for its punchy, alternative take on news. However, I discovered that its owner, Morry Schwartz of Schwartz Media, banned journalists from writing about Israel. This policy undermines the true beauty of journalism and makes you wonder what else is being carefully curated for us. So, I boycotted it.

Bias exists everywhere, and people often protect their biases, knowingly or not. Everything we read and watch is driven by motives. In our neoliberal era, those motives are typically money, power, or fame.

Questioning Authority

Consider Jordan Peterson. Does he really care about skateboarders, or was including skateboarding in his "12 Rules for Life" just a ploy to reach a disengaged audience? Much of what we see today is marketing, and we live in what might be the most inauthentic epoch in history. Companies craft campaigns that seem to care about the planet but don’t change their harmful practices. Employee wellbeing programs proliferate, but the underlying issues remain. Busy and tired, it’s easy to be swayed by clever marketing.

To avoid being manipulated, we must discern what is helpful, enriching, and worthy of our time. We need to look behind the curtains and question the authenticity of those who seek our attention. In a capitalist system, where there’s money to be made, lies are often ready to be told.

Heroes and Influencers

Much of what we value comes from the people we admire. In the past, philosophers, poets, and authors were heroes. Today, they’ve been replaced by social media influencers and startup founders. We get our advice from tech developers who fill our days with biases, often without us realizing it.

In earlier times, communities had respected elders with deep knowledge and wisdom to pass on to younger generations. The disappearance of such figures parallels the decline of community in general, a natural by-product of our consumer culture that praises individualism and independence.

The Modern World

We live in a world where beautiful moments are often missed because we are too busy sharing them online. It’s a world of frauds who don’t truly know themselves, trying to buy their way to an identity and happiness. This could be a result of a lack of elders and genuine mentorship. Our new holders of wisdom, social media influencers, and reality TV stars, don’t provide the care and guidance that traditional elders did.

Today, we have less control over our minds and thoughts, pushed and pulled by high-tech algorithms, clickbait, and inauthentic stories. Our new elders are social media influencers and reality TV stars. This shift reflects a system that values financial advice over life wisdom.

Conclusion

We are not victims but creators of our reality. In each moment, we have a choice. We are conditioned by our ideas and the stories we consume to think certain things are good or bad. The trick is to know what will truly make us happier, freer, and more fulfilled. We must understand the craving, anger, fear, comparison, greed, and bias behind our thoughts and be brave and playful enough to take care of it.

Be careful who you listen to. Your time and mind are precious gems. Choose your influences wisely and strive to connect with your authentic self.