Multiple Avatar Psychosis

The splitting of our personality between the real and the virtual is a recipe for developing almost every form of mental health pathology that exists. The more we divide ourselves into distinct, sometimes incompatible personalities e.g. between our professional and personal avatars, the more difficult it becomes to feel whole, genuine and content at any given occasion. By living our life changing one skin after another to suit whatever role the psychonomy wants us to play, we become imposters. We are never whole, as we always have to hide some aspect of ourselves to please others. Enduring this fragmented state for years, it is no surprise that the longer we participate in this pantomime puppetry of the psychonomic circus, the more we begin to lose sight of who we are. Our real self, our soul, was long ago surgically excised by the psychonomy and replaced by a pre-programmed, implanted script which aims to maximize our contributions as obedient consumatrons within the necrocapitalist matrix. Those of us who have had enough, at some point may embark on a belated, desperate quest to “find themselves” and become whole again. This can be challenging, when so much of who we are as adults has been molded by the psychonomy, while at the same time our most genuine and intrinsically personal traits have either been silenced or erased.

It is no wonder then that an entire industry of life coaching has been set up to monetize our new insecurities in this environment, along with a pathological blogging and social media culture aimed at convincing people that they are not good enough, both physically and mentally, so that they will purchase “life-yoga” solutions and meaningless merchandise. This is the capitalist system acting up yet again, this time to “heal” us, for a fee of course. The same system which damages us, will try to make a profit out of “fixing” us. The psychonomy will always try to drag us back in, just as we try to escape it. Many of us will look for their “real selves” in all the wrong places: a new meaningless and exploitative job, or somewhere in the dark digital metaverse where they will adopt even more avatar personalities. Necrocapitalism is great at applying bandage upon bandage on its unprocessed trauma, rather than bravely looking under the bandage and taking stock of what is happening.

As the world approaches its inevitable collapse and our traumas become more and more evident, the same corrupt system which broke us is now monetizing the industry of “fixing” us. And it does so increasingly without even the involvement of fellow humans. We are sinking deeper and deeper into technological substitutes for our human relationships and the traditional ways of helping each other, as many social services formerly provided by humans to humans have now become “apps”. No dystopian novel could have predicted that we would reach this point, this soon.

George is an author, researcher, chemist, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons or enjoy his books