The splitting of selves

Whether you still are defensive about something you’ve done in the past, or you feel objective enough to acknowledge the wrong of it without self-disgust, depends on how disconnected you are from that version of yourself. It depends on if it’s actually a past version of you. The transitory point is shame, when you no longer defend what you once said/did but are still not comfortable acknowledging it. That’s like when an amoeba is at the mid-point of separating from itself but is not yet two distinct bodies. Once you become a different version of yourself, you can look at some past actions with regret but not shame because it’s like observing someone else altogether.

Then again, that might be another self-deluding defense mechanism. I’m not really sure either way.

Changing communication

It's often said that the internet has changed the way we communicate. It's true, but there's more to it than that. The online world has changed how we learn and how we educate others. Obviously it's made information a lot more widely accessible—although not all the content can be trusted. Pre-internet, it took more effort to find articles and studies. You'd have to take classes, go to the library, and do other things that would require leaving your home and sometimes spending money. That was a barrier for some who might have otherwise been able or willing to learn. Still, I wonder if the easy access we now have can become a deterrent as well. We know that this wealth of knowledge is only a search and click away, so we let the bookmarks pile up with the assurance that we'll read everything later because we can.

It changes the way we relay knowledge, too. If we want to prove a point or pass along a story, we share links. There's no requirement to first digest it ourselves and then explain it in our own words. We don't have to memorize facts; they're available to go back and reference. This can make it more challenging to talk to people face to face without the internet at hand, because it's frustrating to want to show them exactly what you're talking about but not have the source available.