467. Popular Distractions

Our lives are continuously entangled with the popular. Objects and ideas found valuable by most are also the most retained and repeated. Each repetition further confirms the value of the popular thing, causing the cycle to increase in both frequency and intensity.

Relief arrives only through our gradual boredom with the currently popular. Its appeal fades because we have become used to its presence. But the waning influence of what was once popular merely creates room for the next thing to take its place. Freedom from the popular is never truly achieved. There is always something attracting the majority of attention in every domain, and sometimes across all domains.

Our obsession with the virtual has only simplified and accelerated this process. The popular is more available than ever due to the connectivity provided by technology and its corresponding forms of media. It is also more ephemeral, with rapid replacement providing a mechanical balm for boredom. Media algorithms and generative language models reinforce these cycles and push the popular to us with ever greater immediacy, out of the dual objective to reinforce their own value and capture our attention.

We are perpetually distracted by an endless supply of exactly what we most desire. The consequence is that our ability to see has become so profoundly occluded that we cannot even recognize our own needs. We could see them only if we could also see the parts of ourselves and the world that are not at all desired, not at all valued, and not at all popular. In many cases, these parts are the very opposite of popular: they are what we most hate, fear, and despise.

At the same time, we must also continue to see the popular. It must be seen not only at the surface, but down to its roots. We must see why we have become so attached to these things and the nature of our sustained obsession. Only when we can see everything, both popular and unpopular, will we begin to understand the enormous harm produced when our attention is consumed by distraction.