Lunch

Every lunch I observe the conversations of my colleagues about whether or not something is vegan or vegetarian. I never start these conversations and rarely participate. Being the only vegan in the room seems to be enough to make this a constant topic of discussion. I am neither the most dedicated nor the most informed vegan, but I know that there are plenty of good reasons to choose alternatives to animal meat and products. My colleagues manage to have no clue about these reasons and stick to a conversation theme that avoids the most important question… the “Why?”.

The way this seems to be in their head is that there is an innate category “vegan” and either you are part of it or not. As if I were born vegan, others are born vegetarian and somehow the majority ends up eating animals.

What bothers me about this is that my colleagues do not connect the dots of me being a (at least somewhat) smart person and me deliberately choosing to “suffer” in our society (hint: being vegan is not fun in most cultures and societies). So my colleagues don’t want to know the why. Even though it is right there in front of them.

Again you don’t need to dig deep to find good reasons for veganism so I cannot accept people in my society not knowing them. How is it possible to be so well-informed and yet so ignorant? The annoying part is that I like my colleagues. They are nice, friendly, intelligent, and very accomodating.

Thus, my brain always carries two emotional strains at the same time, the part that likes my colleagues and the part that despises them for being horribly uninformed (or even misinformed).

Post-society

People still use so-called social media. Hell, what’s wrong with everyone?

Yes, you can find very contradicting results in the scientific study of the usage of this platform with regard to how it affects people’s well-being. But.

These companies are amongst the richest and most influential companies in the world and their influence is not positive for the world that I want to inhabit. Even if you want to disregard the word genocide that could be attached to facebooks mis-aligned algorithm, it sure did not improve an escalating situation during the ethnical purges in Myanmar. You can argue whether or not social media was responsible for the Brexit. But why is just having that discussion not already the red flag that we need? Again, if a platform influences the state of world politics to such an extent, we should ditch (or at least regulate) it. There should be the opposite of the benefit of the doubt which would be assuming the worst.

Going beyond that, the recent years show a pretty hard correlation of the use of the major social media platforms with the rise of more extremist politics and the splitting of our society in more and more segregate realities. What could go wrong if you let companies from a country that only knows two colors shape your color perception?

And even further, the time people spend passively consuming content is time people do not spend to build connections. Social media is not connecting people. Not in general. It can create connections. But most of the time it gets into the way of people talking to each other. Wherever I go I see people looking at their black mirrors swiping right and left and not interacting with the people that they actually came to hang out with.

But the worst is that I don’t see people even enjoying social media or getting anything from it. People got their attention span down to a few seconds but they don’t even like what the algorithm drops at them?

Why is anyone (smart) still using this? And why are we still celebrating and discussing about this as if it were relevant for anything in our life?

Social media has a huge pile of skulls that are basically pasted on their front page and somehow most people around me ignore that. Again, I know a lot of cool, smart people. And still they waste away their life, their attention span, and even worse: my planet, my world, and my ressources; all the while supporting the destruction of our society.

I don’t think you can use these platforms and not be partially guilty as well. But I still got to live with these people because they are nice, intelligent, fun, and simply horribly ignorant.

Planet

No one cares about this planet. People still think electric cars are environmentally friendly. People still think you can eat the cake and have it. Boundless power, travelling, devices, houses, things. People believe everyone can be rich and we can still live on this planet.

I have a hard time joining the debates about what is more environmentally friendly amongst my colleagues or family. As if it were important how many toothbrushes you throw away when you go to work by car every day.

Still, these are the people I live amongst and some of which I like. Is it possible to like them with their naivety?

Success

In our current society, success is defined by making money. If you find people that will buy your product (or service) then you are successful. Even if what you build does not feel like an adequate product to you.

My job is part of selling things that I hope the world would not need. It is exciting technology but it still causes me headache to be part of something that I don’t really believe people should pay money for. One thing that keeps me there is the fear that there are barely productive jobs where what you sell is something that people should buy. At least not in the sphere of exciting technology.

So I work unhappily happy, building products that I don’t think the world should buy.

Delivery

People want to own more cheap trash all the time. And they want it now. And they are proud they just bought it for 26.55 from China and it came with free shipping. But those delivery drivers blocking the streets all the time. Super annoying. Lucky we have packing stations now. So I don’t need to see the underpaid delivery driver.

And why is there no Uber in Germany? How about because that’s only sane? Uber is horrible for the society.

People think they can get cheap immediate everything and no one has to suffer for it. Again, should I just consider those people naive? Uninformed? How can you live in the same physical place as me and not know about the gig economy? Should I respect you despite your lack of knowledge in anything?

Dissonance

It is rare that I find people who share my knowledge but then it is not hard to find common ground. Howver, the majority of time I live amongst people that I have to get along with and that have lives and problems on their own. I don’t want to hold their choices against them. But I think they are horribly uninformed or more and more often misinformed.

Most of the things I wrote about here are not specialist’s knowledge. Those are topics and themes that should appear in your everyday news. If they don’t I would question your news sources. Is it relevant who is the new coach of this and that Basketball team? Or is it relevant that we still have a planet to play Basketball on?

My mind is in pain from keeping these strains in my head. Holding my opinion back because I think there is too much of a gap for me to explain my point. Maybe if people would be listening to me speaking for an hour. But in a lunch conversation, people don’t want to be confronted with too much new input. And I don’t want to be the one to bring the bad news to the people.

There are good reasons for my statements on this page. But like here, I find it difficult to put things in a coherent narrative, especially in a conversation. And thus I stay quiet and live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance. Where what I say and how I live do not match what I think. Sounds like doublethink. Causes depression.