17 July

The most important thing you can offer all people as a result of this insight isn’t kindness, it’s honesty. By not talking about things we find difficult in life, others think our lives are nothing but happy, fun times. Fake ‘positivity’. Why social media is so damaging to all people, especially those struggling. It makes them feel even more deficient, more of a loser, more depressed. Our lives now have this ridiculous baseline of fake, permanent happiness, which we all feel we need to live up to. Being sad is human. Being angry is human. Being down is human. Being all of these things is also important, for your emotional health, but also as a spur to fix the world’s problems. I think social media is incredibly damaging (and banal), because it doesn’t get this. (P.S Williams never said this, it’s a quote from the 19th century.)