Attention Span

 Did you know the average person’s attention span has dropped to an attention span that is lower than the attention span a goldfish has? Did you know that car accidents actually increased in 2020 compared to years prior, despite most travel decreasing due to COVID lockdowns and jobs removing commutes in favor of telecommuting? Did you know you can say whatever you want and do whatever you want without any consequences if you quickly do something or say something immediately following it that jolts any observers in a way they don’t expect? Pay attention! Did you know all of this stuff is really connected in a seriously funny way? Or maybe a funnily serious way? Probably not.

            A fact that most people will be unable to admit or realize is that very few people are masters of their fate. Most people, most family members, most friends, most CEOs, most politicians, most bankers, most people regardless of race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, sexuality, religion, or geographic region are just goldfish mentally, but not normal goldfish, goldfish with severe mental deficiencies.

            What is the reason for this? Ease of survival, technology, biology, society, food sources, lack of exercise, and a near infinite amount of reasons can be described, but those are just phenomenological. The real reason is human nature, most people become enslaved over time by whatever “nice things” they manage to get or make or steal, because most people are slaves by their very nature. Most people hurt themselves by doing well, and only have some semblance of competency or self-discipline because their external environment makes them have some semblance of competency or self-discipline. Social media has demonstrated this fact quite nicely.

            What difference does it make to your life if Trump or Biden is president. What difference does it make if you’re allowed to say racial slurs or wear a MAGA hat in public? If you can be honest, which most people can’t, you’ll admit it makes literally no difference. It’s nice to say bad words or wear what you want or win a game (politics is a game – and a stupid one) just to see people you don’t like lose the game and laugh at them, but none of this stuff is really important or honestly impactful with regards to your quality of life. If you think it is, you have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. Pay attention!

            When you have an attention span that is inferior to a goldfish, you are incapable of doing anything serious. You’re also incapable of doing anything unserious. You get tossed about like a ragdoll, abused and mistreated by people who have managed to get attention spans that are longer than a goldfish’s attention span. People like me, just slightly different as these people are malicious and not trying to help you out. Pay attention!

            You don’t have to be inferior to a goldfish. You don’t have to feel bad or worried about the future. You don’t have to pay attention to the news. You don’t have to think some election is going to change your life. You don’t have to be miserable. But only if you can trick yourself into not having the attention span of a moron. This is not really a guide on how to do this, as how to get yourself able to genuinely focus for longer than a few seconds is something that is different for each person, and if I was selling you something to get you to do this then I’d just be abusing you, but it is a wakeup call of sorts: Pay attention.

            I can’t make you fix yourself. No guru can fix you. No book or essay or politician or religious leader or drug can fix you. These things can help point you in the right direction, like I’m trying to do right now, but you have to be the one to fix yourself. Don’t trust anybody who says they have all your solutions. Trust yourself. Take responsibility for your life. Take responsibility for yourself. Quit waiting for some superhero or magic event that fixes all your problems, the only superheroes or magic events that are coming are increasingly sadistic and evil, and the longer you wait for them… the worse they will be for you. Pay attention!

            Pay attention, please, before you end up in hell. Most of you are already partially in hell. No woman, no drugs, no movement is going to fix your problems. No sex, no promotion, no external respect or accolade is going to fix your problems. Nobody but you is capable of fixing your problems. Man up, or woman up, and take control of your life. How do you do this? It’s different for everybody, and it’s confusing and extremely hard at the beginning, and you’ll be accused of increasingly horrible things by goldfish brains (crabs in a bucket) who get bizarrely bitter and suspicious of you the more you free yourself of being a slave, but you also will care less and less what these losers think until you find their jabs and jeers and threats ridiculous. Pay attention to yourself!

            Be honest with yourself. That’s all you need to do. You don’t need to buy anything or follow anybody, not me or anybody. Stop spending your time and energy trying to distract yourself from how miserable and sick and sad you feel, and really just embrace those feelings and stew in them and realize you feel those things for a real reason. Then work on getting rid of those real reasons, fixing those real reasons, and mitigating those real reasons. Once again, this is a vague framework and not a step by step guide because the process is different for each person. Once again, nobody can do this for you but you, nobody besides you can get you off the road to hell that you and all the other goldfish brains are on. Take inspiration from and talk with good people who have done this, but realize they’re not your savior or parent or guardian, and anybody pretending to be that way is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, somebody who is just turning you into a toy for them to abuse. Your success will be your success and you will get the rewards from it only if you really know you are the one who succeeded, and not some cult leader on twitter who has you paying them a subscription and is larping as God while abusing people. Pay attention to yourself before your attention span gets even worse! Good luck, or bad luck, I don’t really care.