I’ve been feeling an odd mix of disdain, jealousy, contempt, admiration, annoyance, envy, inspiration, anger, and a whole load of other emotions at the plethora of twenty-something “coaches,” “influencers,” and optimistic cunts positioning themselves on social media as having figured out life’s “secrets” of success & manifestation…
Maybe it’s karma - having once walked in those shoes, plugged into many of the same belief systems, egregors, and programs - now having to sit on a different side of the fence to balance out perspectives. Perhaps its residue yet to be cleaned from the alchemical processes of having distilled much of that same type of content through years of life experience into wisdom, along with much yet still to be deconditioned as transitioning out of the cults of self-help, motivational hustle-culture, and online marketing niches with many of those same threads running through them.
Indeed, I did buy into it all. The “manifestation” formulas, “entreprenerial” mindsets, “lifestyle design,” MLM doctrines & dogma, capitalistic “spirituality,” etc, etc. I was hungry for “financial freedom” and lapped up every damn thing that hit my field of awareness promising it, throwing discernment out the window that would’ve helped decipher the substance from bullshit. I fell hook-line-and-sinker for marketing pitch after marketing pitch, jumping from one guru, book, program to another to keep high off the motivational buzz of Neptunian delusions that I was on the verge of “making it.” And in some regards, I convinced myself I had made it - despite actual results to validate that. But, ”fake it until you make it,” right?
It’s weird, observing this decade lag of trends - having thrown myself into MLM and internet marketing (with little success to show for it) and rocked the “lifestyle design” thing before it blew up and became something else with everyone & their dog being a “life coach” or some shit in Bali; so clearly seeing the patterns all over the internet now that I had totally played out back then unaware.Observing the archetypal configurations shuffled around ever-so-slightly, with the same motivations & intentions at the core of a younger generation enthusiastically plugging into and propagating promises of infallible success formulas - intimately aware of what they don’t yet see, blinded by the same optimism and ego-drives I once was.
Perhaps, having once walked that same path and now understanding it more thoroughly than those just discovering and subscribing to it like the holy grail, I ought to be in some position to exercise more empathy & compassion. So I dunno, maybe it’s indicative that I have far more maturation yet to undergo, that I commonly get triggered by it all still.
Perhaps these patterns are nothing new, just adapted to a different era - not all that different than all sorts of religious fundamentalism or ideological fantasists that has people thinking & feeling they’ve “seen the light” or some shit and have been bestowed the purpose of spreading gospel. (While often fooling themselves, in these cases, of the primary drive/motivation of self-interest - financial first and foremost, while reinforcing their newfound belief systems & corresponding identity accordingly.)
Granted, my perspectives are no doubt tainted with bias and it’d be unfair & inaccurate to typecast hundreds of thousands or millions I’ve never met with generalizations. Surely, there are a wide spectrum of “coaches” and various “content creators,” along with a spectrum of quality from absolute shit cookie-cutter motherfuckers to genuine, uniquely awesome, substance-rich motherfuckers that stand out and well-deserve the credit due. And hell, even those I might judge as inauthentic, unoriginal crap may have their particular fractal of an audience who finds great value in what they have to say however they say it. And surely, there’s probably still some aspect of ego at play in my own psyche that gets off on feeling smarter than the entirety of that generalized “community/industry” it judges, making myself stupider through the judgements rather than owning & working through my shit, taking a neutral objective stance, just minding my own damn biz when something/someone isn’t aligning, and humbling myself to really seeking understanding of others’ unique perspectives (rather than casting and believing in my projections). But hey, ”it is what it is;” I never claimed to be enlightened.
Fact is, hopium sells.
Whether going back a century to Napoleon Hill’s “Think & Grow Rich,” the multi-billion dollar self-help / personal development industry making millionaires out of the charismatic without shame in telling whatever people they want/need to hear to feel more “empowered,” the pop-hit “The Secret” having brought the concept of “manifestation” more into a mainstream acceptance, network marketing cults shapeshifting the same ideologies into enrolment scripts, or the recent “life coach” boom, there’s an abundant supply of appeal to people’s desires for quick & easy results and control over their lives to meet a demand. (Whether that demand is inherent to start with or manufactured… well, the science of psychological manipulation pervasive in marketing strategies is no secret.)
Maybe I’m still bitter because I wanted it all to be true. Classic “buyer’s remorse.”
And thing is, it’s all so damn convincing.
All those NLP experts at the helm of corporate sales strategies, as well as all the borderline-sociopathic independents taking & using the same advertising techniques to craft the blueprints & prototypes spread even further… that shit is some real-deal spellcasting. It’s designed to hook people in and play to our hopes & fears & dreams, not only such that we willingly hand over our dollars, but become believers and help propagate the ideologies. It’s not just products being sold, it’s paradigms. It’s not just subscriptions to monthly webinars & calls, it’s subscriptions to constructs of reality; frameworks through which to view & interact with reality; systems of filters & biases to shape perceptions. And let’s be real: no cult, despite all it’s talk of “empowerment,” encourages anyone to question its own self-serving interests. Of fucking course the pictures they paint look appealing as fuck and are cast as truth; yet when it comes time to questioning the weaknesses & faults… well, that comes back on you, your “limiting beliefs” and/or stubbornness to think independently rather than “follow the working system.”
Didn’t succeed? You clearly didn’t try hard enough or “sabotaged yourself” through “negative thinking.” Didn’t retain your success? You surely must’ve missed a step in the formula somewhere. Things just not budging no matter how much effort & discipline you exert? Well, the upsell to the one-on-one coaching program will help you for that customized support & guidance you need (from someone who’s never walked in your shoes)… and it’s your own fucking fault if you don’t follow through, cuz the guru is always right. (Let all those preaching discipline, persistence & consistency walk in the shoes of someone with ADHD for a few years and discover what a rarity it is to achieve two or three days of consistency in a row, and what an absolute hell life is trying to force anything beyond that - and then dare to shame us “lack of follow through” or whatever glitzy language turns the gaslighting into acceptable rhetoric in their world.)
Granted, there probably are some excellent “coaches” (or “influencers” acting like them) who might be more down-to-earth and realistic, who do sincerely custom-tailor their counsel to the specifics of individual situations. Though it’d be fascinating to know/see how many would actually acknowledge the limits of their own knowledge & abilities, sacrificing a paycheque for the honesty that there are times & places the “flawless formulas” are inapplicable - *and that sometimes life can’t be controlled and manipulated as well as the sales presentations insist, with there coming points that embodied wisdom entails a surrender of all the theory, “expertise” and systems to the unknown of unique soul journeys that are what they will be, no matter how much we may seek external authorities to direct us on bending them to mind-ego’s will.
There is that part of me that still wants to bite at the temptation, gleaning inspiration from the curated highlight-reels of picture-perfect snapshots of youngins “living their best lives.” There’s still some part of me that wants to believe it can all be as simple & easy as they insist; that wants to keep keep alive those same ideas I subscribed to a decade or more ago, employing cognitive bias to filter out any/all evidence to the contrary.
But once you see & learn certain things, there’s no going back.
I miss the youthful optimism and naivety I once had - and that I see reflected back in this younger generation of digital nomad know-it-all influencers who’ve had just enough “success” to keep confirmation bias active, but not yet enough to see beyond this boundaries of their ideologies.
I admire the enthusiasm they have for expanding into new, exciting opportunities - missing that feeling I’d gotten high off of for years; while unable to turn back the clock, having been expanded into experiences that knocked both the enthusiasm & naivety out of me, brought some hard reality checks, and set in motion a profoundly deep transformation of values, perceptions, self, and relationship with life & the world.
I get frustrated & angry at the reflections of what they have that I cannot - for I’ve already had it at earlier points in my life, have witnessed its death, and am on a unique path entailing different things now, no matter how much my mind & ego might crave others that’d better satisfy them. (Or perhaps the anger & frustration are indicative of being “off track,” in some ways “stuck” yet unable to pull myself out with any of the homogonized strategies, formulas, or secrets others sell to line their own pockets - angry & frustrated as a consequence of impatience and stubbornly clinging to old ideas & beliefs, rather than surrendering to the discomfort of uncertainty and creating the space for guidance to arise in due time.)
The contempt… (maybe that’s too strong of a word, but let’s roll with it since it’s come up)… perhaps its at/towards the hubris of thinking one could have life figured out and be in a position to bestow upon anyone the answers & solutions to living a perfect, dream life; of acting like an authority who knows what works as one-size-fits-all solutions, without having ever gone through a ton of life experience or walking in others’ shoes - and/or at some sense of feeling gaslit as though there’s something ‘wrong’ with me because I can’t/don’t conform to such oversimplified approaches, if they were flawless. Or perhaps its a sign of irresolution where all such hubris within myself failed - not yet having made peace with where, when & how I lost & broke parts of myself pushing limits & boundaries under the self-delusion of thinking I knew more than I did and that it somehow provided exemption from harder consequences those ‘not in-the-know’ could only be susceptible to.
Damn. I didn’t foresee this extracting out when the opening statement for this piece of writing popped into mind.
It’s oh-so-easy to be so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when young & innocent. There’s a susceptibility to the contagion of enthusiasm then - whether authentically genuine or ideologically-manipulated for capitalistic ends - that’s almost kind of beautiful, as venturing out to discover all these new exciting things & experiences life has to offer. But things change with age.
As awesome it may seem to plug into a cult of positivity and ‘find’ a way to earn a living “supporting & empowering others” as many have in their twenties & early thirties, there’s a whole other set of experiences in store ahead for many that can bring the belief systems to their tower moment.
It would’ve been impossible for me back then to relate to who I’ve become through experiences I couldn’t have foreseen. Perhaps it’s impossible for anyone to comprehend the impact certain life events can & do have prior. We all might’ve heard of the “midlife crisis” and have some conception of what it could look like, but how the fuck some twenty-something know-it-all even gonna pretend to have any idea of what millions of other people walking entirely different life paths have gone through in decades more experience than the kid’s been alive, acting like the MLM life coaching script they’re desperately trying to sell to fund their ego’s desires has any relevance whatsoever to anyone except those like themselves seeking a get-rich-quick scheme masquerading in self-righteous “empowerment” dogma?
And if I was a decade younger reading this, I’d probably judge the fuck outta this cynical old man. Yet, I’d still be years away from the humbling of having been brought to my knees with hard knocks of life there was no way of relating to then. And don’t get me wrong; none of this is to play victim - the humbling was necessary for the maturation process; the hard knocks not “negative,” but something required to check my ego and open my eyes to the seriousness of the human experience, versus having stayed a naive kid with his head in the clouds.
Maybe the “midlife crisis” Neptune-square-Neptune transit is a rite of passage we must all endure, unbeknownst to our younger, ignorant selves - checking the self-delusions we’ve lived under; some of the boundaries dissolved, those of self-identifications that’ve outlived their usefulness as the rose-colored glasses must come off to see more of life for what it is. The Pluto-square-Pluto, serving similar ends while bringing nuclear transformative force to the depths of our psyche & soul; the relationship with our power undergoing overhaul as we can no longer afford the time & energy to fuck around & find out as moving into different stages of life.
All the “choose who you wanna be and what you want, then go make it happen” rhetoric - sure, that sells, and maybe it works… until it doesn’t. Until life requires a breakdown of the ego’s agendas and surrender to emergence of aspects of ourselves and our “fate/destiny” that could not if continuing to subscribe to others’ belief systems and ways of being influenced by cult philosophy, no matter how “positive” & “empowering” it may have been at/in a different phase of life earlier on.
So frequently, I question myself as writing these ‘rants’ - whether its all just hyperfocus gone rogue, giving too many fucks about things not actually worth it, perpetuating my own lack of peace through such focus; and whether I’m the only one who sees & feels it all, or my senses are actually spot-on and the critiques due. It’s been refreshing to see others also starting to give voice to some of the chaos in these domains, affirming I’m not alone - HealingFromHealing on Instagram with a genius blend of intellectual analyses and spotlighting fine cases of absurdities so extreme, it’s tough to tell whether they’re real or satirical; Mike Winnet and his “Contrepreneur Bingo” series focusing more on the entrepreneurial gurus; and Philion absolutely nailing it from time to time as he tears apart various “influencers” oh-so-deserving of it.
Maybe I’d have more peace & satisfaction in my life if giving less fucks. Maybe while I think I can see certain things clearly, I’m just as susceptible to cognitive bias, amplification & distortion - attention influenced by social media algorithms designed to push sensationalism, getting a skewed perspective of the world and overlaying it with judgements & projections to loserishly put down others who are just having fun, trying to earn a living, and doing what they’re meant to in order to feel smarter, wiser, above, or beyond it in some way… and consequentially isolating myself in misery.
Then again, maybe we need people to call out the foolishness, absurdities, disingenuous, manipulative, perverted, and distorted values & patterns propagated through cultures & societies - lest it go unchecked and (d)evolve into increasingly destructive manifestations detrimental to ourselves & others. Maybe the lessons from my experience having swayed into all sorts of shady directions need speaking - these criticisms not being to put anyone down, but introduce maturity & wisdom to a collective dialogue where mistakes are being repeated; whether anyone listens or not, who knows, but does it really serve humanity to simply sit back and watch younger generations do dumb shit when having been through it and could pass on some insight to shorten their learning curves & hardship? (Then again, is it my time & place to do so - or are there just certain ‘rites of passage’ we must all go through, my lessons unsolicited and destined to fall on deaf ears anyway as they all gotta go through what they gotta go through anyways?)
I don’t fucking know.
I’d like to think that these writings were some valuable contribution that makes them worthwhile, but may never know whether I’m just fooling myself that anyone cares and they’re not just a waste of time that’d be better spent focused into something light, easy, joyful, and fun. Maybe the lighthearted enthusiasm of those I judge actually outweighs their shortcomings and they’re actually contributing more to “uplift the collective” than these type of rants ever will.
Yin & yang. It’s probably not one or the either, but both - and everything in between, in different cases, to different degrees, at different times, to/for different people.
Yada, yada, yada.
Bada bing, bada bang, bada boom.
I’m out. ✌️
The modern day snake oil salesmen, these “influencers”. God I hate the stupid terms they come up with for this garbage lol influencer, “thought leader” so obnoxious.
I think that there is definitely a lot of vanity involved as well as trying to scam people and sell shit. Listen to me but buy my subscription type shit, mega churches come to mind lol.