Blank pages can be intimidating. You merely whimper at its dominance and then growl it into submission. Huh? Yep, that is shear loss speaking. I wanted to write something totally and utterly brilliant ... and then I thought to myself, "Self, what shall we say today?" And then it dawned on me. This quandary is probably the same that gives many in the MSM fits as they habitually bang their heads until something even remotely feasible and worthy of relaying to the masses manifests ... slow news day. Self punishment is sometimes a good thing. And what better thing to humble one than to take responsibility for their part in the perpetuation of "news"?
Alas, I am dreaming. In the age of Citizen Journalism and the advent of the Blogosphere TRUE, Responsible journalism is on life-support. Course, True objectivism is a near impossibility ... always has been ... it is human to be biased ... whether we like it or not we are ALL biased. Disagree? Take a moment to inventory the simple choices you make in a given day ... that, my friend Is Bias. Now expand that to a story that garners your attention, listen to yourself as you recount the story to another ... notice anything?
Course, it only works if you actually Relay the story ... not a condensed version. It generally takes more than 140 characters. And the full effect is only experienced if the transmission occurs Verbally ... I know, it feels weird ... but it does work. You know, Discussing things ... through that archaic medium known as Speech.
We have become a society who feeds ... lives off 10 second sound bites and headlines. The average newspaper was once written at an 8th grade level ... now, we are reading at a 5th grade level. Before long, the news will be relayed as a comic book. Must keep the attention of the masses. There doesn't seem to be any room for compromise; there is no thinking for one's self. If people have to work for it, it may die.
There is no interest other than the bare essentials. And besides, most view the news as all horrible, bad, and essentially terminal.
There is no cure for the rampant superficial assumptions, ignorance, and disregard for all that was once held in esteem ... everything has damn near been reduced to 140 characters or less, packaged as "easy access" media and information available On The Go ... it is emphatic laziness run amok. That is all.
We have done it to ourselves. All in the name of "convenience". Where will convenience lead when our society dumbs itself down to the point that a 30 second news story ... presented through the ease of the Tube ... is no longer enough. You know it is coming. People barely have enough time to stop and have a conversation In Person. It is easier to tweet your thoughts ... All thoughts ... post a Facebook update ... ("Leaving mall. Gotta pee, more from stall.") WTF???
During my time in college I actually met incoming freshmen who could not construct a grammatically correct sentence. The idea of verbs, nouns, predicates were Alien concepts ... They considered sentence construction in the same light as journalists view advanced math ... with tremendous wailing and gnashing of teeth ... But they could sure Text and Tweet.
I get so aggravated when people go on and on about the virtues of our modern "society". Many of the conveniences are just that a convenience, nice to have around. But when did we lose sight of those things that make us Human?
It would seem that we are merely a bunch of people living together, houses squished together, cars zinging past one another, and people shoving their way through crowds of their fellow humans and not once taking the time to see that we are losing the "connection" there is no "society". There are a bunch of strangers battling for dominance and power amongst themselves with regard for nothing more than whomever accumulates the most power and wealth by the end of the game wins. And many wonder why instances of mental health issues have dramatically increased comparably with the rise in availability and ease of "technology"?
Ah, that sounds so drab. I don't mean to be a downer, really. I just don't understand how it is that people are not seeing the big picture, OR if they are, they don't care. And if so, why not? Take another Xanax and let it ride?
Much of what we are seeing today has been in the works for decades. As many know NOW, the internet was not a new concept ... new to the people ... but not New New. It was born of "defense", "convenience", "strategy", "preparation" .... essentially a tool or medium for violent retaliation ... so it has been said. But what else is new. It is packaged so nicely ... kinda like a bite-sized candy cane. All the flavor and festiveness presented with On the Go convenience. Pay no attention to the warning label printed in microscopic type on the toxic label in which its wrapped.
People are eating up all the conveniences like candy ... forget the cavities, deal with those later. (Hopefully the government run dental program will pay for the fillings. Maybe?) No one seems to understand or care that our humanity is being crippled by the conveniences with which we are being baited. I don't mean to sound like some sort of paranoid loon. I am merely tossing out ideas. And, Yes, I have read 1984 AND Brave New World. But then ... I have also read the Bible, too.
Just because you see things in print doesn't always make it true ... same with the screens at which we stare ... Take a leap. Turn off the tube. Pick up a book (... A real one ... made of paper and glue ... It has binding (aka a spine) and sometimes pictures.) Then open your mind and allow it to do its thing ... Consider and Think.
{It would seem that we are merely a bunch of people living together, houses squished together, cars zinging past one another, and people shoving their way through crowds of their fellow humans and not once taking the time to see that we are losing the "connection" there is no "society".}
ReplyDeleteBRILLIANT!!!