We all need enemies and conflict.

I was talking to an old friend on Facebook earlier today and she made me realise something. Well, I knew about it, but I hadn't really thought about it much until now. And that is we all need a monster to fight to survive. There's always some personal struggle to overcome and if we don't have one, then we tend to invent one.

That's why we have seen the rise of activism in the last 10 years. Life has become so incredibly safe that previous monsters of old, like the bully at school that would punch ten bells of shit out of you for being different, has been replaced by the unseen mental skirmish.

What do I mean by this? Well, as we aren't outside climbing trees, playing football, messing around with our friends like we used to, and we are mostly stuck inside with our phones and computers then we find that the battles we fight are becoming more and more of the mind.

In Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, safety is one of the core needs to be fulfilled, when that is fulfilled then we move on to the self perception and confidence needs; where we work on our interpersonal selves, we look deep into our souls and find what's in there to find worthy enough.

Now some may waive this off as some stupid tripe from some white guy in his ivory tower who doesn't understand the needs and the struggle of the foot soldiers but then I'd say there was never a better time to be alive than right now. There is so much opportunity for everyone, so many avenues to be all that you can be. Information has been freed, for the low price of an internet connection you can essentially learn a new skill or learn something new.

This wasn't the case when I was young, there was far less ability for class manouverability in my youth. College was highly expensive, only people with certain attributes and abilities were able to go that route, and very few escaped the hustle and bustle of working class life.

But now you can quite literally be anything you want to be with a little bit of eagerness to learn and some free time on your hands with an internet connection.

Life has also become way more expensive than it ever was before. For example when I was first starting out with my own house I didn't have a phoneline and I didn't have a TV. Who needed them anyway? I was always out with my friends. All I needed was rent, water, gas and electric and the rest of the money was mine to do with as I pleased.

But then today we have all the extras that you can get if you're feeling particularly spendy. Mobile phones, internet connections, apps on the internet, games, Netflix, Starbucks, Disney TV, sky TV, phonelines, there's a humungous amount of add ons you can have today that never existed when I was a kid and perhaps we need to keep that in mind.

So we have adopted fighting over the internet. Our lives are only amplified online. So if you are an unhappy angry person then this will be amplified ten fold online. It's something that I've noticed. Your self becomes more bold when you are in the safety of your home and not in direct conflict.

In my opinion life is only as hard as you make it.

But that means that as we adopt the life of sitting in our houses and connecting and socializing that way, our battles become firmly not of the real world too. Oh they are definitely real battles of course, but battles of the mind, of the self, of the world.

And as we adopt MORE of the internet, as each passing generation becomes more connected than the last, the battle lines become very much different. As life becomes safer in the real term; where schools adopt bullying policies, and everyone has the right to learn, and life generally becomes safer, then we become more and more unhinged online.

Mark my words, being online in 10 years will be like a constant war zone because of the human need for conflict. It'll be an interesting change for sure, and one to make yourself aware of if you generally like a peaceful life.