The Unfortunate And Sobering Reality

We are bombarded at every corner with a new reality show that we are all cast in, whether we like it or not, and whether we get credit or are paid or rewarded for being a part of. It is not the Trump show or the Clinton show. It is not the Oprah show or the Ellen show. It is not Keeping up with the Kardashians or the proverbial Joneses. It’s all of these people, causes, and things converging together at once, jockeying for attention and relevance, working together as well as at odds with each other to gain significance, action, and control. A storm of tweets of 280 characters and memes and hashtags are served up to create mass movements, mass confusion, mass hysteria, and gun tragedies in America and all around the world. The interesting and ironic thing is that amid the highly desensitized culture we’ve created by consuming and interfacing with mass social media, there are fewer and fewer people going to Sunday mass for a time of reflection, forgiveness, rejuvenation, or rejoicing. That is too bad, as we all, including me, could benefit from believing in something greater than the persistent negativity and pandering for our attention that we respond to. We the people, my friends, are broken from within. Much of our society is devoid of the inner strength to rise above the noise and confusion and has become desensitized to the realities of our time. We need to rebuild our trust in our community and nation and rebuild ourselves from within to have the strength, courage, and good relationships to allow us to grow. For example, what is your perception and impression of the world? Full of kindness or hatred? What you see, hear, and experience shapes your perception of truth and helps our understanding and views of other people and the world.

None Of The Above

Our worldview is always changing. Local, national, and world news and events feed our brains with data, information, images, and stories that shape our knowledge of other people’s cultures, religions, and governments. How much credence should we give the segments of news that are deliberately released and fed to us via cable news, social media, newspapers, digital media outlets, radio, and other sources? That question has been the beating heart of the #FakeNews movement of the past couple years. People around the world have come to recognize and push back on the big brother, big government, big business backbone of centralized media which has promulgated over the past forty to fifty years. As the people become more discerning about data and information, they have come to question the traditional methods of media delivery. What was once perceived as an independent and highly trusted industry has become a network focused on entertainment, ratings, political agendas, and commentary. People have discovered that news is only news in so far as a highly complex machinery has predetermined that what is being touted as news is newsworthy for their customers. Anything can be news, yet the media industry tends to focus more attention and resources on negative news than any other content. We do not frequently read or hear many human interest stories of individual heroism, compassion, love, empowerment, personal success, and survival even though they take place every second in our world. Rather, we are fed a diet of human terror, war, anger, greed, lust, scandal, catastrophe, surrender, and so forth. It’s true that the world is far from perfect and that negative issues are proliferating each day. To say the media is balanced in its news reporting would be highly inaccurate.

Nobody Wins

Those stories exist and are told by our media, but they are few and far between the true attention grabbers that are played over and over to capture our attention and encourage our fears, outrage, and hatred. Those lowest forms of human intelligence are pushed on us as news consumers so that we can remain addicted to a worldview directed by a media state driven by financial profit, not the responsibility of delivering balanced news. This is not to say that there are not independent, loyal, and dignified journalists and news people in the industry. The concerning and unwieldy new reality for society is that it is becoming more challenged and complicated to discern truth from reality. We are already living in a world of artificial intelligence and augmented virtual reality that we’ve designed. The Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse stated, Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. Well, today the lever is a Twitter account and the fulcrum is a populous that feels as if it has been overlooked and forgotten by its peers. In the past decade, the foundations of truth, trust, and justice have been shaken and challenged to their core. Leaders in government, religion, and industry have been challenged to lead in an era of swift information and social change. Public perception used to be shaped by a man with a microphone. Today, there are billions of microphones and a society that no longer trusts, let alone values, the message coming from one man. The question is, within these truths do we see a future with more clarity or greater confusion? The answer to that question lies within each of us.

To The Ends Of The Earth

We can sit idle and continue to be consumers of distorted data and information or we can choose to be engaged citizens that choose to elevate ourselves to our highest purpose and with a common conviction and caring for all humans and all life. Really, it is that simple. People are imperfect. Our lives are in a constant change of flux. How we choose to manifest the good within each of us to create and accomplish something great is what makes all the difference. Negativity breeds anger and hatred. Positivity spawns kindness and gratefulness. You can have a profound impact on your life and the lives of everyone you meet. This is not meant to be a political statement or one grounded in a sense of altruism or utopian idealism.