Thank you to those who visit and read. Having recently learned that nearly all social media is dominated by bots, agents, algorithms, and shadow bans, I decided to leave the fake artificial world of manufactured popularity and to devote far more time to the real world of my website. For even if the traffic here is not great, at least it is the honest pursuit of truth, and not the constant production of lies, corruption, disinformation, misinformation, and a host of other evils which fill all of social media, including Gab, on an hourly basis.
Nearly all humans are dazzled by what is popular, and yet, what is popular is rarely what is right. To be able to pursue truth and virtue amid a world that is full of corruption and folly is no easy task, and it requires courage and contentment. While society says we are defined by money and popularity, and tens of millions of Americans will judge you based on whether you have money and popularity, being faithful to God is the only thing that matters. Our conscience requires that we reject the corrupt paradigm that exalts money over God and human life.
The Apostle Paul wrote honestly in 1 Timothy 6
[6] But godliness with contentment is great gain.
[7] For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
[8] And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
[9] But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
[10] For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
[7] For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
[8] And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
[9] But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
[10] For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Indeed, how true this is. Socrates said, “He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”
A huge solution, to my mind, to the current marriage and family dysfunction in America is for Americans to learn that contentment, which is a choice, is available to all and is a gigantic part of harmonizing our relationships with ourselves, God, and others. For when we are content, we grant ourselves peace and joy that we could not otherwise have. This does not mean living a mediocre life of indolence and lassitude, but it does mean that while we strive to learn and labor daily, we are happy with what we have and who we are.
The media and schools have trained many of us to live in perpetual discontent. Many cannot be happy without television and movies, and these are the least of many ills. Others constantly pursue vices which pursue them, like gambling, drugs, alcohol, and what is possibly the worst, pornography, and all of the vile lusts which wreck lives outside of marriage. Also, in recent years, our contentment has been under daily attack from cell phones, for there are few who can have them and use them responsibly. It is a rapid change, possibly the most rapid in the history of humanity, to where humans crave these devices and prefer them to human contact, friendships, relationships, and marriage. We cannot live without a cell phone. Today, it’s nearly impossible to work a meaningful and profitable job without having a cell phone and many of the apps most jobs require.
I was on the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota, a wonderful place, and the apps on my phone worked well, except for the app for the trucking company I was working for, which assigned loads and gave directions. Without this, I could not do my job. It wouldn’t work on my initial phone, which was in perfect working order. So I was encouraged to buy a new phone just so this app would work. I purchased a brand new phone last year, and the app still didn’t work. It almost got to the point where I couldn’t work because this app wouldn’t work on my phone for no apparent reason. Thankfully, my boss let me borrow one of his family’s iPads, on which the app did work, but I might have lost my job because it didn’t work on my phone.
This is why the average person trying to make money is deeply attached to their cell phone. And when people go to their cell phone for work, it rarely stops there. Some engineers have programmed cell phones, games, apps, and websites to attract and hold human attention, and they have been wildly successful.
I tried to calculate how much unplanned time I spent on the internet since I first joined Facebook in July of 2013, being banned within the next two years, then writing blogs and other websites and blogs to read and comment on in the twelve years following. I came up with a conservative figure of at least a year of my life that I’ve spent on websites and my unplanned cell phone usage, and I have very little to show for it, too, if I’m being brutally honest. That is a tremendous amount of time. This is time that was stolen from other, more meaningful activities, which I largely enjoyed in the first twenty years of my life, before cell phones entered my life around 2000. But consider: I got a cell phone around 2000, and joining Facebook in 2013 makes me a very late bloomer; tens of millions had cell phones before 2000 and were on social media well before 2013. So if I wasted, and I don’t use that term lightly, a year of my life on unplanned internet usage, where does that leave those who have been online for much longer? How much of our lives and relationships have we sacrificed for activities that have so little to show for the investment?
Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best dividends.” And which wise person would disagree with that? Honestly, who is going online to gain virtue and wisdom? Likely fewer than 5% of those online, and it’s possible it’s less than 1%.
So, I’ve resolved to begin posting on here and interacting with commenters. That way, I can eliminate bots, the fake chatter, and the corruption of all social media. Gab is likely the most pro-free speech social media platform in America. And yet, even with that, the platform is full of bots and fake accounts that can’t debate and are extremely rude and obnoxious when asked why they are hiding online, suggesting that these large accounts with tens of thousands of followers are nearly all frauds. AI Chatbots can dominate social media, encouraging speech that their owners like and discouraging speech they dislike. Few people understand that they can be constantly interacting with chatbots and dealing with virtually no real humans for hours, and some spend thousands of hours online. Sure, with Facebook, you deal with real profiles of friends and family, but how can we verify the accounts of many strangers? It’s nearly impossible. And why would any American remain on social media when these social media companies ban millions of their fellow Americans for telling the truth? When companies defend lies and attack the truth, only a fool would choose to spend time around them.
That sounds harsh, but it’s better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie.
So, in learning contentment, we are on the royal road to peace and prosperity, the kinds which no circumstance or human on earth can deprive us of.
