YouTube

Hi friends,

These days I have been watching a lot of YouTube (think Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, The Office, etc..) and I came to a realization.

You see, there are two ways in which I watch YouTube - I would either watch it from my laptop's Chrome browser, or my iPad's DuckDuckGo browser. It's just a matter of which one's more physically accessible for me (e.g. iPad's nicer when I watch as I lay on my bed, slacking off.. hehe).

Now, I don't know if you are familiar with DuckDuckGo, but it is a cookie-free privacy-oriented browser, compared to Google Chrome which keeps track of which videos I have searched for. And indeed, at one point while using the iPad I lamented to myself that the video recommendations aren't as good as when I use my laptop - it would be pretty much random. The recommendations through my laptop will be on-point: the next episode of Stephen Colbert, another clip of The Office I haven't seen, or another new minisode from my favorite game-streamer, DangerouslyFunny.

Well, of course, you say. Every single search that I offer on YouTube through Chrome informs the great algorithm of YouTube of what my preferences are, and as the system tries to keep me engaged, it offers me similar videos, and most importantly, videos that it thinks I would be most likely to watch and enjoy. And as I click on these recommended videos, the algorithm gets more and more reinforced and finds more and more videos to my liking.

Isn't this how our minds work, as well? It offers thoughts to us much like YouTube offers videos to us. Except that this is 24/7 without a pause button (well, unless you get into the bliss field when you meditate, get into a coma, or a blackout sleep). But I've recently discovered that by being circumspect about what I write in the search bar of my mind, I increasingly more and more enjoy the resulting thought-videos that are offered to me. My mind learns of my preferences, and gives me more of the same. And then someone said that your thoughts become things, that your inner world determine your outer world, that what you feel and vibrate is what you attract. And friends, the science behind that is known as the Reticular Activating System (RAS).

I hope you are loving what your channel is playing for you.