What is real in a world of AI, Bots and social media?

Longing for human connection in a world of technology

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

It’s the golden hour of writing on a Monday morning that happens to be Memorial Day.

The pull to write is here again. The pull to write today is coming from a deep ache and pain inside of me. I hope by writing it will help me discover the why. I'm writing for myself right now and no one else. It’s way it should be.

Where is the pain coming from? Maybe it’s from not knowing what’s real in life sometimes? Maybe it’s from the projecting I do with other people? Maybe it’s from avoiding in-person, social interactions because I feel I'm not enough.

Humans can let us down, especially when power is unequal

Humans can let us down. The ones we trust and go to for help can let us down. They have little knowledge of how their actions can hurt us. Their excuse and society’s excuse that they are “human” is not enough. Our so-called leaders in our world, our community, churches and professionals, can let us down. You let me down. The You can refer to certain people I thought I trusted throughout my life. Their power was unequal. You might not see it, but it is abuse of power and we suffered. I suffered. I'm working through it now. I've been trying to use the pain as a catalyst for change.

My Substack note that gained momentum and made me question what was real. I was grieving our beloved pet and that was exploited by some.

Pets are real. My family and I are recovering from our loss of our dog Kya. Kya lived to an old age of 15 but it’s never long enough. Her love was unconditional. Her absence left a huge hole in our lives and hearts. There were no games with her, unless you counted playing wiffle ball with her in our back yard

I posted a brief memorial on Substack a few days ago for Kya. This was a way to deal with my grief. The post quickly gained likes and comments and then took off on its own. It received 1,770 likes and multiple comments by the next day when I decided to take the post down.

There were comments, but not all were authentic as I would soon realize. My heart swelled as I read the comments “Wow these people really care”. I told myself. I wanted to thank and answer them all. I became curious and started to check certain posts and accounts. One was a mature woman that looked like a retired teacher and she was holding a cat. When I further investigated, I realized the account was fake, unless her only 5 subscribers just happened to be celebrities. I would find other accounts that were similar to that. My subscribers jumped from 90 a few days ago to well over 100. I felt like I could not celebrate 100 subscribers as I imagined. I have reported and blocked the fake accounts. The process of it takes up so much of my time and energy. I am here to write, but with social media sadly, it is the world we live in.

I need to celebrate my why in my writing

I am looking at it another way. I am not celebrating numbers of subscribers on Substack., I am celebrating the new connections I made with many gifted writers here. I am celebrating people, friends and family that I've touched with my writing. Sharing my writing is a gift. Being able to share my writing on a platform like this and having it “published” and be seen feels like a dream come true for me.

I appreciate online connections, but it is hard to know what’s real. Human connections can be that way too. I need to get back from behind the screen and work on my real-life connections. I need to work on my writing too, off this app. Writing and connecting through this platform was what I came here to do. It’s about expressing myself through writing. That is the biggest joy. AI, spam accounts and humans that have let me down can’t take that away from me ever.

I'm going to spend my day with what is real to me, and I don’t have to travel far to find it.

Questions

What are your thoughts of AI?

How do you connect with other writers?

Have you ever lost sight of people in your life because of technology?