Everyone I know who was Online from a young age is some flavor of nonbinary, or broadly, trans. There is to me some sort of physical to mental disconnection from being so wholly exposed to what is mentally an entire plane of existence, where physical form is inert or even orthogonal to consideration.
The less Online I become, the more I feel physically rooted. This is not overlaid by a spiritual aspect, that’s like a secret third thing not on topic here.
So in consideration to that, I read a paragraph from The Art of Loving on Tuesday.
I relate to this passage rather directly. I grew up in a household full of a lot of contention. I could not rely on either of my parents, and I still can’t. I often found escape via novels or games or broadly the internet. I sought not other people (for I did not find most people to be enjoyable to be around), but instead increasing solitude. I felt safest when alone. I think, in retrospect, this was a psychological safety thing. I needed to not be where I was. I found that when I left for university, and I was able to open up, and actually engage with the world around me. I no longer find myself so drawn to escapism, my life has become relatively open and free.
I can also see another path I might have taken, one that I see of people who have remained wholly Online. This kind of unreality one might occupy when the mind is not bound to physical space, when ideas are as tangible, and more easily malleable, than detractive surroundings. A world of maya, of illusion. It’s something I see not infrequently, as I glance at old dashboards or twitter feeds. I don’t know that it scares me as much as I note the subtle and small ways in which a worldview becomes slanted over years of exposure. What I do find interesting, is that as I move and acclimate into what I perceive as more stable and healthy spheres of operation, I note in myself that these spaces are perceptibly more sickened feeling. Years ago, I might have felt them familiar or benign, but now I can see where stickiness is in certain discussions. I can perceive people blindly reaching out to whack each other in a forum, hurting from an arbitrarily different location in themselves. It’s almost uncanny.