A rant on 'friendship'

I really don't understand some people.
A 'friend' stops responding to your messages, or responds with a huge delay (and not always).
They cancel almost every time you arrange to meet.
After a point, you also have to cancel due to illness.
But you suspect their cancelling wasn't due to illness.
They reappear in your messages with excuses and apologies after months, only to disappear again.
They don't remember birthdays and they don't ask about important events.
Basically, they don't know anything about your life in the past 4-5 years.
They don't even support your art or care for it at all.
Then, they have the audacity to claim you're good friends, and say they're so hurt because you don't consider them a friend anymore.
They cry that they will always consider you a friend.
They make a bleak attempt to meet you (telling you last minute, where and when it's convenient for them – per usual).
At last, and without any attempt for further communication, and despite you making an effort and messaging them once in a while to check in, they delete you from their social media account.

I honestly don't get this logic at all?
If you don't want me in your life for whatever reason, fine.
But don't try to pretend you care for me as a friend, pretend you're so hurt and try to guilt trip me for expressing the truth (that we're not friends anymore) only to delete me from your social media account after sometime?

Everything is unfiltered so there’s too much of everything

That thought came into my mind the other day. I was feeling overwhelm, as an artist, as a human. The phrase "too much everything" keeps playing in my head. It doesn't make sense, does it? It should be "too much of everything." Yet, the incorrect version is often in my thoughts. 

I wonder if that subconsciously led to the title of this writing. 

I remember when we used analog cameras, we had to be selective about what we photographed. The film restricted how many pictures we could take. Even if you had another film with you, it took time to replace it. You had to do it carefully so to not ruin the pictures you had already taken.
And if you were to publish your pictures for the whole world to see, they had to be of a certain caliber and aesthetic. A picture anyone could take wasn't considered special. 

Nowadays, almost everyone has a camera and plenty of storage space on their phone, and many of those folk share their pictures with the whole world to see. Very few care about the quality and aesthetic of their pictures. And why should they? They can take thousands of pictures without paying much thought into it. They have the tool and they have the storage.
Thus, because we're bombarded with pictures anyone can take without paying much though into it, our expectations are lower, and we are impressed more easily. Add the use of editing programmes and AI on top of that; we struggle to figure out what is real and what's not. Is this truly a lovely sunset, was it edited to be this beautiful, or worse, was it AI generated?
Consequently, we're not able to build our own unique aesthetic based on quality art, human art, as we're not exposed to it; we become consumers of what is presented to us. 

This applies to many different aspects of life nowadays. I used photography as an example because I feel it demonstrates the shift quite well. 

Are we surprised at all, though? In late stage capitalism (or the start of techno-feudalism) planned obsolenscence and enshitification have resulted in no ownership, or ownership of bad quality products. We expect things to break down after a short period of use. We expect things which are affordable to be of bad quality. We accept that good quality and longevity are a luxury for the uber wealthy. Similarly, we accept lack of access to quality art and education.

I feel we are drowning in a sea of unfiltered materials, physical or not, tangible or intangible. There's too much of everything, and finding that which is polished and holds true value is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

You may think I'm being a bit melodramatic, or that I'm exaggerating.
Perhaps. But I can't help but worry that movies like Idiocracy and books like 1984 will prove to be prophetic (if they haven't already proven to be).

Random Thoughts LXXXVIII

How many more winters will I get to see?

I’m looking outside the window. I can see the garden showered with spring’s sunlight. What a beautiful day. Winter is now gone. Till next year. The passage from winter to spring was so quiet and discreet, I almost missed it.

And now, that leaves me wondering how many more winters I have left. How many winter-to-spring passages I will have the privilege of witnessing until I exist no more. How many years are left before I become an idea of who I was, a memory.