Feeling Helpless
In the book The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh, the protagonist laments about standing alone while having to “hold back the tide”. By saying this, she is referring to a few different things.
In this mythological retelling, she sacrifices herself to the Sea God who has been ravishing her village. So her use of this phrase is both literal and symbolic. She is trying to stop the Sea God’s wrath. She also notes that the people in her village are also quite literally trying to hold back the tide to protect their town.
But she also refers to people in her country and the Spirit Realm who are trying to stand up to forces greater than themselves, such as empires or human behaviour.
I have felt this feeling lately. I think a lot of people feel that forces beyond themselves- like technology or human behavior, are like a wave (more like a tsunami) crashing down on them. The modern world can feel endlessly disempowering.
Feeling Helpless Toward Technology
Many people feel tied to a screen. It is like we can’t look away. There is always something that demands our attention. This relationship to technology can make us feel just as powerless as the content we see.
Even if you create content- and therefore assert your identity and autonomy in some way- you still probably feel small compared to the forces of algorithms, advertising, and social networks. You have to contort yourself in order to fit in this system.
A Personal Example
I recently experienced this helplessness firsthand while migrating my blog to this site (MessyBunUniverse.com) from my previous WordPress account. I needed some more space to intellectually stretch my legs. And so I have been working to transfer my previous content.
There is a post called How Images Shape Us: From Paintings to Deepfakes that caught my attention. While I was reposting it on the new site, the search engine optimization (SEO) program impersonally chastised me for using too much passive voice in the article.
Passive voice in writing is when the subject of the sentence receives the action, instead of performing it.
Example:
- Passive voice: The cake was eaten by the children.
- Active voice: The children ate the cake.
This felt fitting: the post is about our uncertain relationship with technology. I felt like a passive receiver of uncontrollable forces, not an active participant and this was unconsciously reflected in my writing. In contrast, my posts on topics where I felt more agency used a stronger active voice.
Feeling Helpless Toward Human Behavior
Even in my relationships, I often felt that it was my responsibility to hold back the tide of another person’s bad behaviour. I had to protect them and others from what seemed like inevitable harm. It was exhausting and also impossible.
Out of curiosity, I checked how much passive voice was used in one of my blog posts about abusive relationships- it was also very high. (The post was called Conveniently Timed “Sorry’s”.)
Perhaps my burgeoning assertiveness will be reflected in my writing.
Part of this has come through realizing the limits of what I can control- and putting proper boundaries in place.
What I Can Control When it Comes to Technology & Relationships
- My emotions and reactions
- My priorities
- Ex. Am I trying to rescue someone who doesn’t help themselves? Could this time be better spent on myself?
- The way I spend (some of) my time
- I cut out YouTube and social media, for example, and it freed up several hours a day
- I also gently walked away from draining people
- Aspects of my identity
- Such as parts of my physical appearance
- What I choose to believe in
- My authenticity online and in-person
- Self-expression
- The things I feed to my body and brain
- No more junk for either
- Questioning things sooner
- Noticing when technology isn’t good for me or when relationships aren’t
Recognizing what you can control can make you feel better about what you can’t. It can also make you more productive.
I was never ultimately successful at “holding back the tide”. The best I did was delay the consequences of it. But it took a lot of energy on my part- energy that could have been better spent on myself.
Still, even if you can’t stop the tide, you can decide how you face it. Perhaps you can seek higher ground and gain a clearer perspective.
What tide have you been holding back lately?
Messy Bun Book Lover
(Originally posted on Aug. 12, 2025)
Read The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh → https://amzn.to/4ok9On2
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