Words & Music by Mike Power

It turns out I’m not a misanthrope after all, that I really like people. They’re just more abstract than I expect them to be – disorienting and playful, like dolphins. In real life. On social media, they get squeezed through filters so tiny that they enter your thoughts through your pores, until you wind up feeling like a bit player in your own life story.

There’s nothing wrong with being anti-social, no matter what society tells you. Society, like the people who make it up, is imperfect at best, and prone to inexplicable malevolence with no warning. The media that follows us everywhere – documenting our experiences and feelings – connects us with strangers who are friends, and vice-versa. The filters on both incoming and outgoing communications require constant recalibration. An oversensitive filter breeds boredom and an under-sensitive one turns a lifetime of personality development to dust.