It’s been quite a week in the news (apparently).
I don’t get much direct news and I try to filter my input from other directions but interviews on American television and horrible heinous interpersonal violence and demonstrations and questions about law enforcement are everywhere.
Media loves a frenzy and now a-days it’s possible to go from zero to 60 in the media a hundred times a day when the conditions are correct.
No slow news days now.
And so, what we see is terrible and awful and reinforces our view that society is breaking down, the world is ending and all the foundations upon which we built things in the past are rotten and septic and need to be destroyed and washed away.
This will inevitably allow us the opportunity to build a new society based on different ideals which will be perfect and wonderful - yeah right!
News telling is the little things, the wonderful displays of courage and compassion and community and society that exist all around us, every single day is scarce and sparse and sadly doesn’t sell the papers.
Incidences where people are not racist and where they embrace anyone within their community from any background to achieve greater things are happening every single day, in every single community.
Examples where peoples are not homophobic and who don’t judge other people based on external experience or internal feelings or because they are different from one person or the other in any way are rife throughout communities but never reported.
Examples of where people try to let everybody fit in and live life in a harmonious, productive and mutually beneficial way are absolutely everywhere and massively outweigh the negative parts but they are never reported.
Now a-days humans judge history and the development of society in hours and best days.
We’re talking about a process that takes generations, that has been distilled down to 90 characters.
Our debates at the lockdown dinner table (which are generally not for public consumption because they’re in a safe place) are challenging sometimes and difficult and hard to square off but it shows me that my daughters who are now young women are learning how to think, not ‘what to think’.
All of a sudden my time is done and I’m a dinosaur and my conscious and unconscious biases are outdated and outmoded and almost impossible to shift and change and so my role in trying to shape a better society diminishes and my relevance decreases.
That is entirely true except for the fact that history does repeat itself and certain features that you see now are repeating again and again and for the young guys who are learning how to think, to take at least some advice from the old guys about what happened during the last crisis is probably the best way to proceed.
Looking at the world through the eyes of a nihilist will show you any number of things that are catastrophically wrong to demonstrate that society is f*ck*d, but as always the narrative is ours.
Hope is important and has never been more important and is never seen more in the tiny little bits of brilliance that are happening nearly every single day that turn out to be the things that you never saw.
Heads up, eyes open, all we are is a drop in the ocean but all the ocean is; is a collection of drops.
Blog Post Number - 2675