“Land sales tops US$ 100 million in one week”
This was the headline that grabbed my attention recently. I thought about it for a split second. Come on, 100 million is big, but not that big. Surely many billionaire businessmen and celebrities would have many mansions all over the world and 100 million would be consumed in an instant. And that’s when I noticed the land sales happened in the… metaverse. Wow.
Yes, we’ve all been reading more and more about the metaverse these past several months. Some virtual reality world where avatars can come together to do various things. I don’t understand this stuff well, but a 100 million bucks for land in the virtual world? Wow that sounds like a lot of people have gone cuckoo.
But still, these transactions happened, and many years later, I’ll probably have to eat my words as well.
Indeed, everything has become virtual now. People don’t even speak to each other, greet other or see eye to eye. It’s all done on social media. Nothing wrong with this of course. Except that life on SM is totally filtered. All bad stuff is filtered out. And all good stuff (including every imperfection being neutralized) is amplified. Much like Hollywood kissing scenes right after waking up in the morning, because their mouths presumably auto-brush themselves when their eyes open.
It’s important to periodically remind ourselves what constitutes reality and what doesn’t.
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Terminal
Social media platforms are often used in funny ways. Facebook and Instagram are no more places to talk about one’s own life – rather it has become a place to sell one’s wares (and very effectively too sometimes). Linkedin is more about sharing one’s personal life than professional life. Twitter was supposed to be for short messages, but I’ve seen ‘threads’ with 100s of posts too.
The first post on my Linkedin feed today morning was another personal one. It was a tragic post. After seeing countless profiles on Linkedin of people who had succumbed to Covid after being tagged posthumously by their friends, this one was different.
This man posted that he only had a few more months to live – having been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He said with utmost gratitude that he’s enjoyed his life of 60+ years and that he’d had no regrets and that this would be his last post.
The comments that followed had people sympathising with him – that their future would be different without him, and that he should live his best life going forward etc. Given how unpredictable life is, these commenters assume that they will be around longer than him. Not a bad assumption to make – but it’s an assumption nevertheless. What if it weren’t true. Would we live our lives any differently? It’s fashionable to say ‘yes’. But if ‘yes’, then why aren’t we living that different life already?