^{Photo by Jason Rosewell}

Nowadays, the Internet becomes an extremely loud and noisy place: endless notifications, messages, chats, posts, streamings, ads, spams, bots… They are all shouting right in front of you anytime everywhere to catch your limited attention and to steal your precious time.

Unfortunately, I’m a part of the problem by generating noisy contents: low-quality jokes, unrealistic complaints, and aggressive arguments… Once I realized that, the feeling like a commuter in a subway during rush hour: being pushed around forward and backward, I cannot stand still for myself. I have to follow the flood of people walking towards one direction, meanwhile, push others to the same direction. Who knows in the end if there is a cliff waiting for us or not?

I need to change right now.

What do I want…?

What do I want by posting my comments, my photos, and my videos?

• Do I what to receive more likes than my peers? Envy.

• Do I what to be famous followed by millions of followers? Pride.

• Do I what my opinions crush opponent’s opinions mercilessly? Wrath.

No, I want none of them. Pursuing them is not good for me. Then what do I really what? I want to share my life and my passion. That’s it, that simple.

Who cares about that…?

Who else cares about my life and my passion?

I’m no influencer, I’m no celebrity, I’m not even considered as popular. I’m a normal person having an ordinary life. Who does know real me on the Internet? Who cares about my life and my passion anyway?

The Internet is too big, full of bots, zombies, and people who are keen to have listened… Enough noise is continuously created around us to confuse our senses. In such a world, no one would even notice if my voice is absent, who cares?

To the Internet, I’m 100% nonunique; To my family and my friends, I’m 100% irreplaceable. The real people who care about me are those who stay close to me. Thus, I’d prefer to have more one-on-one conversations, quiet and effective, rather than shout out loudly to the whole world only for reaching people closer to me.

My data, my privacy

I do want to share my life, including all those sweet moments, privately with my family and close friends. Those are my data, my privacy. They are not beneficial for other strangers, only becoming the interest of some bots. Why should I expose my life outside in public?

Talking about the things I’m passionate about, the things I will continue learning and keep accumulating knowledge. I do need a quiet space to learn and think properly. It’s ok that it takes time to dig deeper. I should not be impulsive to argue with others or to exhibit my wisdom by showing my knowledge. Wisdom is in the silence. In the future, I may only focus on writing blog posts, as summaries of the learning progress, as well as useful documents for the future myself.

Be quiet

I need to be quiet. There are so many things to do in real life: reading, writing, walk outside, talk to friends in person, call family members, take care of myself… Stay with people I love, spend my time loving them.

From now on, I switch on read-only mode, tune down the volume of this noisy world, slow down the pace of following the crowd. Why should I catch that fast train like others? I even don’t know if it’s going to the direction where I want to go?

Stop following the crowd, suddenly I can smell the fresh air from all over the place. My curiosity would guide me to take a peek behind the rocks. There would be a small path leading to a forest. The beautiful and peaceful nature there are waiting for me to explore.

Shut up, be quiet. Listen, learn and love. ❤️