Our generation is currently going through what I like to refer to as a cosmic cluster-fuck of reliance. In the past, people were generally content with sharing good news with those closest to them. Hell, some folks even went as far as keeping it to themselves in order to stem the tide or to avoid being known as a contemptible schmuck. In today's society and the virtual companionship we have hitched our wagon to, it is nothing short of pedestrian to make it known how significant our lives are. From the awesome (but not as fetch as you make it sound) job you just landed writing for so and so blabbering about such and such to the new curls you put in your hair, (seriously, they're curls) all the while time-stamping your dog's every move and making sure you mention how you are destined to become the next Scott Conant given your expertise to whip up a helluva hamburger helper.
Documentation. This is what we will be known for. The desire to do things, not for one's self, but in hopes of being lauded for it. We can sit back and blame the internet for making us this way. Making us feel we need the congratulations and the adulations and the commendations of every human within our virtual reality. In retrospect, I guess everyone likes to be praised, but there's a time and place to share how well-off you've become through you're hard work. To be at a constant need to have affection from twenty, thirty, a hundred people shows just how far intimacy has succumbed since the rise of Social Media. It's no longer about the swell things you accomplish, it's about the amount of people who applaud you for whatever it is you do.
Live for yourself, not others. Have the grit to let your work speak for itself. Chances are, if it's any good, people will take notice. If you remove it fully, all this fantasy world, parade-in-your-name bullshit, you are still as dead inside as you were before acquaintance X admired you for completing task Y. Don't let yourself become a virtual reality, a mere fragment of what you are truly capable of. Instead, go out and get it, and let yourself know it is good. It is right. It is yours.
