The way I see it, we’re not getting anywhere close to where we need to be. Wound up in the worldly items we’re somehow taught to care about, we slowly slip away from the place of being connected.
I am just as guilty of this as anyone else. But the constructs within which we seem to operate our societies is such that, unless you buy in to the dream someone else says is meaningful, you’re fobbed off as being different, strange, lacking meaning, or worse. What meaning is there to be found in a bunch of numbers you’ve got allocated to your name in a bank account that’s actually owned by a corporation who views you as a number, but promises you extra special service when they address you by your initials?
It’s done for the sake of convenience. That whole live-faster-die-faster-get-things-done-dont-let-it-get-to-you-you-are-very-stressed-accumulate-whatever-you-can-this-is-a-race-catch-up lifestyle is so, well, whether we like it or not… it is the lifestyle we are born into.
It seems almost romantic to give it up and go live in a teepee in the forest, but it’s also impractical. I love the idea of doing that, but if I did it… how would I educate my kid? I’m a crap hunter-gatherer, so how would I feed my family? How would I afford medical care when we needed it? (because, we will, at some point, even if I live in denial of this idea). Of course, there are people who have done this, and done it well… but the ones we hear about have, most often, done it whilst remaining connected to something we all care more about than we should (me included): The Internet.
The Internet is the most enabling tool humans have ever discovered and created. The irony is, of course, that humans that – very often – use the very same Internet to disable others.
Now, I’m not saying it’s all bad (it’s not – every aspect of my life is proof of this – every.single.one) but the problem with creating such an enabling platform, is that it enables both great and awful. Where there to be Elders of the Internet or some sort of Grand Council presiding over it, it would immediately eliminate the empowering force it can be. It’d become dictatorial, where one opinion counts more than the other, or power could be swayed to suit a certain viewpoint. Heck, there are global rumblings already of that being set down.
The thing is – it’s already happening online already. Very often, the ugly opinions get more eyeballs and the quiet, gentle sharings of life and humanity are shouted down. It becomes almost scary to open up a new tab and discover something new, because, by now, someone else has had their chew on it and you’re probably reading some sort of spittle-defiled and skewed version of it.
It’s an element of humanity, I suppose, where the louder voices are heard first, and the quieter ones need to wait for the swell of their own songs to bind together and become louder.
I worry for the quiet voices, nowadays, especially, as the blazing fastfire of the online world rampages more quickly and loudly than ever before…I worry for the quiet ones. The less we listen to the quiet ones, and the more we listen to the boisterously opinionated and typically loud, the less we’ll hear the nuances of our own humanity and hear even less our own inner voice that says…
This is not a competition. You were not put on this earth to beat and defeat each other. If you want to compete, do it against yourself and nobody else. We’re all born into the world in the same way – naked and pissed off. Do your best to get past that and then do something with your life that keeps you grounded, makes you happy and – if possible – makes a sensible contribution to the planet we’re all stuck on together anyway.
