What Balance?

Where is the balance point between ``I'd like to share something that I find to be cool'' and ``I am just craving attention for attention's sake'' these days? I think that some of my internal monologue is directed towards this particular question and its associated ramifications.

I mean, at some level I'd like to share what I think is cool with people I know. And yet, I cannot shake that feeling that by doing so, I am really just trying to grab attention for attention's sake at a subconscious level.

I want to operate on my own terms, yet cannot walk away completely from the mainstream for fear of total ex-communication and being one iota away from being an outlaw. I'd like to be recognised for the good I do, yet cannot live with the thought that I would be under the scrutiny for the very same.

Where then is that balance point?

Flipping the thought the other way, perhaps all that selection bias that I perceive that is present on ``social media'' (man, I still dislike that term a lot) is the take that others have on the same question, with the big difference being they'd care much less about whether their action may be attention for attention's sake as compared to me.

Does it mean that at some level, I am just envious of what they are showing?

I would be lying if I said no. It is probably human nature to envy, and in a bleak outlook that comes from the friendly neighbourhood global pandemic that is COVID-19, liberties that remind oneself of the current predicament do end up triggering off much stronger amounts of envy.

I did demonstrate that earlier in the year when my friends in the US were already getting their second vaccine dose for COVID-19, while I was still waiting [im-]patiently for my turn even as my demographic got repeatedly penalised from the actions of the elderly ``at-risk'' group who don't seem to give too much of a damn, but still somehow got much sympathy applied to them. Yet after I personally have been given the second vaccine some time last week, I didn't do the same thing at my friends did via bragging about it on social media.

Instead, I wrote a rather sedate version of it here, possibly in defiance to the on-going trend of doing so on social media.

Am I virtue signalling in a different way then? If so, am I just another hypocrite?

Yeah, it's probably correct to claim so. I don't have any defense.

I'm just resigned. Tired.