The Daily Pegasus

What is the last thing you learned?

    This may seem obvious, but everything in this physical plane, has an expiration date. Yup, that even includes our relationships and connections. This aint something I’m just now learning for the first time, but it is one of my most recent reminders. In fact, since the start of this year (2025), I’ve lost a handful of friends due to personal differences; in other words I’ve grown from a lot of people.

    People in our lives play different roles to fulfill different purposes. Once that purpose has been fulfilled, the relationship can either evolve or devolve. From a higher perspective, both routes are valid and lead to a greater outcome for all parties involved. But from a human level, this can feel like a slight. The ego creeps in and says “something is changing here.. this is wrong.”

    That’s exactly how I felt, when I noticed a 10 year connection had suddenly ended with a simple “unfollow.” We’re truly in strange times now, where some of us rely solely on social media to keep in touch with our loved ones. Then there’s some of us, who don’t necessarily “rely” on it, but without it, we’d be in our own echochamber. It’s quite ironic how social media is made to keep us all connected, yet somehow, it seems to exacerbate our disconnection (both to ourselves and each other).

    Once upon a time if you had a disagreement with your friend, you’d just call them on the phone and hash it out. I know, how crazy!? Hell, if things were TOO bad, you might even wait until you caught them in-person. Then you’d really give them a piece of your mind. Back then, you couldn’t leave people on read, click unfollow, or any of that pussyfooting passive-aggressive digital micro-aggression bullshit. Back then, you actually had to address the issue. The digital age granted us more space to act like robots—dealing with emotional situations without empathy.

    There’s so many ways I can go with this post, because there’s a lot of issues being expressed here. From the lack of empathy perpetuated by social media, to the changing values within particular relationship dynamics, to the acceptance of loss. Perhaps I’ll address ALL of these topics. I’ll start with the most frustrating one, personally, which is the lack of empathy.

    I’m a part of the very first generation, to grow up (both) with and without social media. So that means I can remember how the world was before it came into existence. I remember the anxiety of walking into someone you just had problems with the other day; I remember the possibility of being confronted for something you said, or did, being much more likely. Back then you couldn’t just fix your lips to say something ignorant without expecting to be slapped upside your head for it. Fortunately and unfortunately, we’ve lost that sense of fear. Now, thanks to these screens everywhere, we forget that it’s another human we’re communicating with; nah, it’s just an extension of the technology we’re interacting with. Thus, it’s (they’re) not worthy of our full respect. Or at the very least, “It’s all online. It’s not real and shouldn’t be taken so seriously.”

    While I understand these sentiments, and even to a certain degree agree with them, my guess is they do more harm than good. If people truly operated from a divine source instead of ego, then maybe these sentiments would be more positively impacting. But we know by now, ego tends to get in the way of our divine potential. That’s why it’s so easy for humans to forget we’re dealing with other humans, so we throw empathy right out the window. Ego says it’s OK to disrespect people who are different from you. Ego says, it’s ok to separate yourself from people whom you disagree with. Ego says it’s ok to pervert love into hate, to end relationships because of how you “felt” about someone’s opinions. Ego says only your emotions are valid in this connection. That’s my problem with the way common folk use social media, it’s just a big bottomless pit of egoism.

    Going even deeper into the “lack of empathy,” I think it’s truly a human nature problem, but these corporations aren’t helping. For example, once upon a time your friends on social media were exactly just that, “friends.” MySpace and Facebook understood the human side, back in those days. Then it turned into “subscribers” thanks to YouTube (not sure of they’re the main culprit, but definitely the most culturally relevant). “Subscriber” isn’t the worst terminology, but it does add a layer of separation; it commoditizes your relationships. You’re not watching your “friend’s” youtube video, your consuming media from a publication as if you’re “subscribed” to a newsletter or something. Less human, more business. Then Twitter hit the scene with their “followers” terminology. I was thought this was so stupid from the very first time I heard of it. Maybe it’s because I’m a Black American man, maybe it’s because I’m an Aries sun sign, maybe it’s because I’m a life path 4, idk.. but the first thing I thought was “I ain’t following NO damn body, idgaf who it is.” Looking back, I can see my response was full of ego, but then again, that’s just such an egotistic thing to call someone, “my follower.”

    This is probably where the great split of social media originally occurred. It went from humans sharing human experiences to humans sharing symbols of status. Now we’re competing on who can gather the biggest crowd of “followers” instead of having deep authentic friendships. Everyone swears they’re either a fucking celebrity, are on the path of becoming an influencer, or living a life that we’ve been programmed to idolize without truly understanding the baggage that comes with it. Don’t get me wrong, everyone’s entitled to chase their dreams—so if that entails garnering influence, then have at it! By no means am I demonizing the people who have/want a high status. I mean look at me, I’m all over social media perpetuating these same narratives—producing content in the hopes of “influencing” people (positively). What I’m speaking to, is people out here pretending to be something they’re not; a star. Like I said, anyone can be a star, but what’s a star truly mean? It’s way up in the sky, even past the clouds, shining bright, looking down on the world’s darkness. Depending on time and location, you can’t even see them. But your know they’re there. The symbol of a star is unreachable. It’s inhuman. Yet we call our fellow humans, who just so happen have some influence, stars—something so fantasy-like and intangible. What kind of unnecessary pressure does this place on both the celebrity and the supporter?

    In the screenshots shown above, there’s a conversation between and someone I’ve known since freshman year of high school. At the time of this writing, that marks about 10 years ago. Granted, this wasn’t like my “best friend” which I hinted at in the screenshot, but this wasn’t just some stranger. You can imagine, that in a 10 year long relationship, somewhere down the line, some level of intimacy is going to be built. However, all of that went out the door the moment I shared “a view” that was too different from hers.

    That’s perhaps the funniest (and saddest) detail of this interaction in breaking down here. She can’t even remember WHY she unfollowed me. Maybe it just wasn’t that deep for her to remember the exact reason, which I could understand; but again this isn’t just some stranger. A random person unfollowing doesn’t hold as much weight as someone you’ve known for 10 years. You might forget why you unfollowed a random someone—or even why you followed in the first place—but when it’s a multi-year friend.. you KNOW why.

    So for her to say she doesn’t remember, says a lot. The details of what killed this connection isn’t important, but more so, the death of the connection itself. It was caused by something small enough for her to forget, yet big enough to end the friendship, it happened without explanation, and it took place online. What does all this say in the end? She never really care about the relationship in the first place.

    How do you just end a friendship without explanation? That’s like a breakup with no closure. Why was that her only resort? Why didn’t she use the features that Instagram has to not engage with specific accounts? You know, things like: mute stories and posts and restrict from commenting. I’ll tell you why. The relationship was never worth saving. It was I who made the mistake in believing we were friends in the first place. According to her, our conversations didn’t hold much weight, but to me they were intimate and vulnerable. That leads into another conversation; understanding not everyone’s version of “intimacy” is the same. Regardless, apart of me feels foolish for overvaluing something I shouldn’t have. You disrespect yourself everytime you invest yourself into something that doesn’t serve you; and that’s exactly what I did by valuing that relationship. I should’ve realized sooner that it didn’t mean shit, and had I ended the relationship earlier, perhaps I would’ve had a better friend in my life by now in replacement of her.

    And to think, all of this was because I had an opposing view. I really wish I knew exactly what that opinion was, just so I can know how dumb and weak her opinion was, in order to result in feeling such great offense. I don’t mean to sound arrogant but get fucking real. I mean think about it. I know I sound like “big-ego man” but how inflated does YOUR ego have to be, in order to feel offended when someone expresses an opinion that’s clearly not about you? Maybe you fall into a category of people they’re expressing their opinions on—but you’re telling me you don’t have the fucking wherewithal to know that your friend isn’t directly talking about you? You don’t have the self-awareness to know that, even if that WERE the case, someone’s opinions of you have nothing to do with you. Yeah that’s right. My opinions of you have nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. For example, I might hate how you chew food with your mouth open.. but that’s about you, that’s really me not dealing with my own discomfort, control issues, and sense of disgust. It’s not inflated ego. It’s deflated ego. You have to be operating from a disempowered state to even think like that. “This thing that doesn’t have anything to do with me, hurts me.”

    That’s what it boils down to. Apparently this is such a hard question. “Why don’t people have the self-awareness to know that someone’s personal opinions aren’t meant to be taken personally?” Probably because most people are thinking about themselves, and so, make the mistake of assuming everyone else is or should be thinking about them also. We assume everyone is thinking from a personal level, so when someone presents a thought, it MUST be taken “personally.” No one stops to understand why someone may be seeing things from another angle; we refuse to take ourselves out of our own shoes and see it from the other parties’ eyes. We refuse to look at things impersonally, yet we take things personally, then choose to take offense.

    That’s what lead into me losing yet another friend, this one of about 12 years. Here’s the ironic part—this one actually WAS one of my bestfriends—yet the killer of our friendship is the same killer of the last; my oh-so different opinions. I mean seriously, what happened in our generation that caused us to promote this weak mentality of “all my friends must think like me.” You don’t want a friend group, you want a cult. You’ll never truly understand yourself, if you’re not willing to be challenged. Same goes for your loved ones. You’ll never understand them, if you don’t present opposing ideas. Wisdom comes from friction.

    I have a feeling, a lot of Americans learned that fact in 2024. If you really want to “know” your friends, challenge them. Present ideas to them that you know they’ll disagree with. Gauge how they process information. Learn how they see problems. Observe how the find solutions. Doing all of which, will help you better understand a person; because now you have an idea of how they think through things. Considering last year was one of the most divisive times in America I’ve experienced, I can imagine lots of people loss friends for the same reasons I did.

    Politics, religion, and money are the three main topics that pretty much everyone has an opinion on. I heard 50 Cent say, he refrains from talking about these things (not so much the money) because it doesn’t matter what your opinion is—there’s someone who completely and extremely opposes it. Basically doesn’t matter how right you are, you’re wrong to someone. Interestingly enough, I’m a pretty opinionated person as is. Not only that, but I have a strong personality that doesn’t back down from a challenge. So that in combination, I can be pretty outspoken when it comes to my beliefs; all of my friends know this about me. So what’s even more interesting, is how some friends can all of a sudden be shocked when I present new ideas. It should be expected.

    But I don’t know what it is about Trump, that just absolutely brings the worst out in people. I wouldn’t even necessarily say it’s all Trump’s doing, but more so, a long history of government manipulation that has caused the masses to have mistrust towards the government. I’m empathetic to that fact. Just because the masses view life one way however, doesn’t mean I have to. I personally, am in support of Donald Trump bringing so much change to a failing system. That’s the thing too, out of one side of our mouths, we’re all complaining about how the system doesn’t work, is outdated, needs to be changed, etc etc. But then when someone gets in there with the goals of dismantling said system, it’s all of a sudden a fucking problem. People are either ignorant to what they want or ignorant on how to get there. Personally, I view Trump as a well-needed catalyst of change. I may not agree with the change. But I damn sure don’t agree with stagnation, and last I checked, moving in the wrong direction is more valuable than staying in the same spot… because now at least you have more information to utilize in your traversing. That’s what I see in Trump. Taking the path that’s never been taken, because everyone else wants to sit around bitching and complaining. We’ve never had the department of education abolished. Sounds scary, sure, but also we see they’re not doing their jobs. Year after year, America has declined in the world ranking of education. Is that not a failure? We complain about the “government brainwashing our kids” then cry like babies when they stop. We complain about taxes, hell America was literally founded to avoid British taxes, and not people are complaining that he wants to dismantle the IRS.

    So from a common sense, practical perspective, I’m all for seeing how these new changes will affect us. Going back to my ex-bestfriend, Tony, he feels the complete opposite way. Big surprise. The actual surprise though, was him feeling offended that I don’t see things that way.

   

    Now this isn’t a political post, so I won’t break down each part of the argument. Let’s really focus on the nature of the conversation. I sent a meme about the Simpsons getting a prediction wrong (rare for the Simpsons) about who won the election. Tony’s response was “it should’ve been.” That’s where I changed the course of the conversation. It went from light hearted (meme) to serious (empowering ideas of self). My point was, it didn’t matter if the prediction came out true or not, we’d be just fine. This is understanding the power of individuality. The world can be in flames, but not every individual has to be burning. On a spiritual level, it’s about not being controlled by the external. I’m so at peace internally, that I reject any external influence in swaying me from that sense of peace. That’s what I mean by “we’re good regardless.” I’m at one with God’s will, and that will, is always good. I can’t control the external environment but I can control how I view, react, and respond to it. No longer do I have to view the bad as “bad” but instead as a necessary component to fulfill God’s will. Everything, EVERYTHING, is a byproduct of God. With all of this in mind, I know that everything is good, no matter how bad—and nothing can convince me otherwise. You can’t convince me that God isn’t doing this, whatever “this” is, for a higher purpose.

    Tony didn’t wanna hear that though. The way he saw it, we were absolutely doomed and there’s no convincing him otherwise. See, that’s just such a disempowered way to see the world. You have no control over your destiny, your sense of happiness, safety, security… all comes from something other than yourself. With this perspective, you’ll always be at the mercy of the world instead of your own will. Think about how much more empowering it is, to believe “It doesn’t matter who’s the president, I’m going to prosper in life.” It doesn’t matter if that’s true, it only matters if you believe it’s true, because then you’ll actually take actions so see it become a reality; versus already deeming it untrue, and therefore, never taking actions to change your circumstances. One perspective tells you “Let’s find out.” The other says “it’s pointless to even try.”

    Speaking of not trying, I don’t think he even attempted to understand where I was coming from. I say this because after that, he never said a word to me again. I even tried sending memes to keep the mood light, but instead he just “liked” my response and left everything else on seen. Mind you, this a 12 year long friend, whom I once deemed my “bestfriend.” Does that sound like a way to end a relationship? Again, social media just perpetuates that by creating this artificial barrier between human interaction. Not to mention, it’s a place to broadcast your opinion—especially during election season. I’m not sure if the first friendship ending was due to politics, but she unfollowed me right after Trump got into office, so I can only imagine her reasoning. The second however, was certainly over politics. What a fucking joke.

    Then we have another 9 year long friendship, that ended over the same bullshit, political opinions. It’s just something about this past election, that really exposed me to the Divided States of America; nowadays “united” just sounds like a fairytale. This friend, was actually a member on my podcast, STAC Radio. You’d assume that anyone I do a fucking podcast with, understand my personality and way of thinking. Well, you’ve assumed wrong.

    On one particular podcast episode, we discussed the job loss data that had been released by the previous administration. While discussing the data, I brought it to our attention that reports aren’t always valid, and in fact, politicians themselves were saying that numbers were being inflated. So while there was a screaming contest happening on air-between my two co-hosts, Aaron & Cap, I decided to jump in and kill the noise with my voice. Again, sounds like ego, but that wasn’t the intention. Instead of each party listening to each other, they were just shouting words at each other. So I brought order to the courtroom and slammed down my gavel, by making my voice the loudest in the room. Once I had their attention, I redirected it toward the main issue – the validity of the data were dissecting. All I wanted to do, was lay down the foundation for how the debate would take place. Isn’t that what judges do in court? Isn’t that what moderators do in presidential debates? When things get too emotional and nonsensical, someone has to reign it in. That was me. However, Abron didn’t like how I did this. I was too aggressive, or as he put it, I “never talked to him like that.” So instead of tackling the issues at hand, he retreated to his emotions because he felt “disrespected.”

    I understand leaving where you’re not welcome, respecting yourself when others are disrespecting you… but this wasn’t that. I never disrespected Abron in that moment, I simply took control of the situation, which made him FEEL disrespected. In all honesty, it was he was disrespecting the integrity of the podcast. The only difference is, I didn’t get offended. In fact, I even offered to keep recording after all is said and done, but he didn’t want to continue. When I told him “this is my podcast” and that I’ll steer in the direction I best see fit, he took offense to that. To him, it was “our” podcast. He never came back on the podcast after that day.

    What I find interesting about this, is we’ve had disagreements and arguments plenty of times. In fact, that’s why we even had the idea to create that episode; we knew Abron would have an opposing view that would be good to dissect on the podcast. The podcast series is literally called “Sharing Perspectives” where we all come with different views on… anything; we were never meant to agree with each fully other. Yet it was from us not agreeing, that led to him never coming back on the show. It was from politics, that led us having such a fallout, that we’re no longer friends. And that’s the even deeper aspect of this entire article.

    All of these friendships ended; not because of ego, emotions, or even politics. They ended because our values fundamentally changed. That’s never easy, no matter what the relationship is. Mind you, all of these relationships were longer than 5 years, and they all just ended abruptly. I didn’t explain with Abron, because so much of it happened in person, but he too, ended our relationship the same way. One day, scrolling on Instagram, I see out-of-the-blue that Abron stopped following me. He didn’t send me a text, dm, or anything. Just straight unfollowed. So there we have it, just like I mentioned in the beginning.. all of these “friendships” just ended with a simple digital micro-aggression.

    Why is that? Probably because it’s easier to deal with change in that way. That’s what all of this comes down to, our relationship with change. Someone whom we’ve known for a long time, is now all of sudden getting new interests, trying out new hobbies, listening to new music, reading new books, hanging with new people, believing in new things. Before we know it, we’re in a relationship with a completely new person. Where did all these differences come from and how did they creep in so insidiously? “This isn’t who I became friends with! You aren’t who I married!” It’s so hard for humans to deal with change, but when it’s another human that’s doing the change, hard becomes excruciating. Our worlds. change. Our understandings of people change. Ego sees change as a threat; which is why I keep hinting at ego so much in this. That’s what makes someone feel angry when they see people aren’t on the same page as them. You feel alone.

    That brings us back to the start of the article. Everything in this dimension, is temporary. When you know that, you no longer feel “alone” when things change, because that’s all there is; change. Everything will expire. How could you feel alone, knowing this? You only feel alone because you thought this connection would last forever. You feel alone because you thought this person would never “change up on you.” You failed to realize nothing in your possession is truly yours and everything will be returned to it’s creator. You fail to realize everything is in a process of evolution, nothing ever stagnant. You feel alone because you haven’t dealt with loss yet. You will always be losing something. When you understand, the fear of being alone dissipates. Why? Because once you’ve lost enough, you start looking. When you’ve looked enough, then you’ll find. You fear losing, because you haven’t found yourself yet. Once you’ve lost so much, a certain wisdom starts to set in. You come to know, that in each loss, there’s always something left.. which is you.