The Soul is Hollow

I wake up and instinctively pick up the phone. I get on twitter and scroll. It's endless. At some point I have a second of clarity and put my phone down. A few minutes later my mind craves the distraction and again I pick up my phone out of habit. Twitter knows what I like.

Sounds idyllic, dystopic but mostly it's just passive. Nothing of it is intentional. The worst of it all is it's more insidious than these apps or algorithm knowing what I like. With enough information it will tell us what to like, who we are and who we want to be. None of us know all those answers for ourselves fully, and algorithms can fill a gap in our soul when it knows enough about ourselves.

If we don't have a purpose or knowledge is there something so horrible to getting it from an app or algorithm? Is it not better than the emptiness we are left with when relying on our own agency?

I don't think this given purpose will ever ring true in my soul. One day I will wake up and see this part of me and come to realize it's not me. I was just told it was once upon a time by a computer. One day I will peel back the layers one by one and find nothing of myself feels real. To wake up one day and realize I have spent decades upon decades building a life, a "me" that is simply not there is one of the most terrifying thing I can imagine.