The two camps on my YouTube feed

I am a big believer in the idea that someone’s YouTube feed can tell you a lot about them as a person. For instance, a quick scroll through mine will show you a healthy (?) concoction of yoga and workout content, spirituality and similar lifestyle content, sometimes tarot card readings, social commentary, psychology, a lil self-help, and art process videos.

I was watching one such spiritual/self-help type video just now about dealing with the pressures that come with growing older, like getting married and having kids (tis me; I am there). What I observe from my particular vantage point is two(ish) camps; the spiritual and the social justice. Because I watch some of both, I see that there is an overarching understanding that society as it is is flawed. However, while the social justice side takes it upon itself to unpack the capitalist patriarchal systems that birth all the other bad shit we deal with, the spiritual side of things puts a lot of the onus on oneself, by manner of adopting the habits that will make it easier to deal with societal pressures. There is not a lot of explicit acknlowledgment of the systems ‘society’ operates on - the critique of it is implied, but not challenged. It’s up to you to change the way you think.

I think this is interesting because I come from both camps, and there are very strong opinions on the Internet and in the world about either one at any given point. Manifestating, affirmations, numerology and other new age spiritual lingo has reached, I think, its height of meme-ability. Similarly, announcing the evils of capitalism on your Instagram story doesn’t have much of an effect anymore, because everyone already knows it. It almost seems like a new neoliberal ploy - make it such common knowledge that it becomes just another gen-Z thing to self-deprecate about, and for everybody else to dismiss as new age liberal jargon. Either way, its ineffective, and only circulates among the groups that know this stuff anyway.

I find it interesting that I as a person am drawn to both; so are my parents, of whom I am a product, both literally but also in the sense of, you are who you spend time with.

I started writing this post in August 2022, the same month I started this newsletter. Today, sifting through my drafts, I found it again and realized I do still have thoughts around the subject. How am I able to digest commentary on race and gender, live through misogyny on a daily basis, be aware of class privilege in relation to myself and my peers who I compare myself to, and also make diligent notes as I listen to my January 2023 energy reading? I’m not saying these things are mutually exclusive, but it is a little funny when I type it aloud.

From a logical standpoint, there’s both, especially from the viewpoint that I can’t change others if I don’t change myself. Simple example, I’m not gonna preach to you about fixing your anxiety by cleaning your room if I don’t make my own bed. But at the same time, how on earth am I supposed to manifest the dreams I conjure up in my visualization meditations about traveling the world when I shudder at the thought of paying this many dollars for the visa application because of the exchange rate, let alone knowing that the country probably doesn’t want to give me the visa anyway? That I really shouldn’t have to sacrifice anything to go to a country that spent a couple hundred years draining mine of resources, foisting upon me its own language, and then making me pay another couple hundred dollars to take a test to prove to them that I can speak it well? It’s all very WTF to me. And yet they can give me a better education, apparently. And so I must suck it up and do it at some point.

But must I? Why do I feel like an incomplete human for not having had the experiences that my more privileged friends have had? Is it then, once again, just a matter of who you surround yourself with that on some level dictates how satisfied you can be with your present life?

A palm-reading thrifted clothes seller at the market my mum and I frequent told me that I think too much and may be prone to migraines. Granted, this may be true, as evidenced from my arguments above. But also, how fascinating that this guy, assuming that he comes from a difficult socioeconomic background (judging by his day job), knows all about star signs and home remedies and life lines and how the first letter of my name may affect the outcome of my life?

So…I don’t know. Maybe the connection between the ‘two camps’ that I mentioned really just boils down to hope. Everybody wants some kind of hope in their lives. It makes sense when I see the most down and out people maintaining the most diligent conviction in their faith and in God. The awareness in me of the lack of justice in the world wants to be balanced by the awareness in me that maybe there’s a way out. And this my friends, is my roundabout way of justifying the content on my silly little Youtube feed.