Gluttony

Gluttony by Jacques de l'Ange

What a time to be alive. We have advanced so far in our society and we have made so much progress in our community. All the diseases we have cured, all the technologies we have created, and changes in the way we interact with the people in our lives everyday. I feel like this is the best time to be alive, but I feel with every great stride in the advancement of humanity we have new problems. We have overindulged in our what we see in our media these days. I want to bring up to big advancements to our society, one old and one new.


The News

Should we as a society know everything about everything? The media is always reporting from all over the world and keeping us updated, informed, in the know , about everything that is everything. Should we know everything though? I hear a lot of people discuss that they don't watch the news due to all the negativity that is reported. That the news may portray that nothing good is happening to the world. Now this isn't all news stations, but why would the news report on more negatives than positives? This is because we as human's enjoy conflict. Disagree? Look at our entertainment. Almost every movie, television, or book has some form of conflict that the protagonist must overcome or not overcome by the end of the story. Sports has the conflict of one team beating the other. Video games have you complete a certain task to progress in the game. We all at our work must achieve a certain goal which the conflict everyday is to meet that certain quota. There is nothing wrong with conflict and we all want to achieve a challenge in someway. I bet you can think of someone who may start conflict in your everyday life. Backtracking to the news though. I feel that we do not need to know everything that is happening in the world. I don't see the benefit of knowing what the president did yesterday, or another shooting, or another legislation that may be passed but will stay in congressional limbo for another 5 years. I understand that this sounds incredibly ignorant from my part, but hear me out. Being aware of what is happening may be important, but I would contribute nothing to the matter. What would I change of being aware of net neutrality? What could I contribute to the topic of gun control? What could I contribute to racism in America? What could I contribute to all the sexual misconducts? What could I contribute to Syria? That is the bitter truth of the news. In our everyday life we don't do anything about these situations and that kills me inside. I wish I could drop what I am doing and aid the people that I see on the news that are suffering from these tragic events, but we all have responsibilities that must be met to provide for ourselves and our families. I feel that if we have all this information from the news, this could alter our perceptions on our world. I am in no way bashing the news, but if we expose ourselves to negativity we too will feel negative. As I said early, what could I contribute to what is going on in the world...well I could write a rant on social media!

Social Media

I remember the first time I got on Facebook. You couldn't use a fake name like on Myspace. I remember writing statuses about my moody teen feelings, posting funny memes, and interacting with old friends. Facebook was great, and then twitter and Instagram came in and I could see what everyone else was doing. Social media was great for knowing what everyone else was doing, and then the down hill began. I will spend hours just scrolling to see what everyone else is doing in their lives than my own. So many times I am not doing anything just to see what person posted a picture from anther country and thinking to myself, "I wish I was there". I feel that we overindulge in everyone's business because we are bored with our own. I am apart of this problem. I will post this blog post on Facebook, and for the next few days, I will contentiously check Facebook to see the amount of likes I will get from this. I'm hooked on the acknowledgments of others that like a picture, post, or status. In the case that I don't get many likes, I think to myself, "was it good enough?". This is clearly a problem. Not as big of a problem of the Facebook rants that come across our feed everyday. Does it matter that we know your opinion on a specific topic on a specific matter on a specific problem that does not even effect our everyday life? It just doesn't matter what we believe if we state the problem with no possible solution. We have freedom of speech and if you want to express your frustrations of how hard your day was today with the sole purpose of just getting sympathy... that is honestly okay. We all want to feel wanted. We all want to be acknowledged of our good deeds. The issue I feel is that likes on Facebook, hearts on Instagram, and favorites on twitter are just artificial acknowledgements. We overindulge on the likes we may get and we miss the acknowledgement we may receive from our family, co-workers, or friends. I feel that we miss the big moments in our life cause we are trying to get that "photo perfect moment" and we miss experiencing life with the people in our lives at that moment. Looking at sunset with the ones you love for a few minutes will always be better than a life long picture of the sunset. This is why when we see fireworks we go out to see them instead of a Youtube video of fireworks. Life is better in real life than the social media that people only look at when they have nothing else to do. Seriously, you may get social media acknowledgement while someone is on the toilet, bored at work, or waiting for a movie to start. Everything we post does not have a lot of life changing meaning behind it. No revelation has ever been found on Facebook. It's just a place to post pictures of babies, recipes, piglet videos, and sweet sweet memes. Posting your anger about someone who doesn't see eye to eye with you is just trying to start something behind the safety of your computer screen and isn't really needed on social media. We have enough passive aggression in real life. You only want attention from others. You could make a blog and post art at the top of each rant and think you are ahead of the curve...like me.

Hand in Hand

I gripe about negativity yet this post is quite negative. I'm not trying to change anyone's opinion, but to just get my point across. I am a weapon of massive contradiction. This is a sin that we all experience in our lives. I know this may not be a sin and it truly isn't as long as it doesn't hurt you or others, but the news and social media has done so much damage to people overtime. Technology in general has helped and destroyed people over the decades. The road to hell was built on good intentions and the news and social media were made for good, but has led to the bad in people. It makes people angry on situations that they cannot control. The feeling of hopelessness can bring down the happiest people. In an interview with Morgan Freeman, when asked how to stop racism his response was simply, "stop talking about it". Perhaps we can take a page from his book. Perhaps we need to stop talking about issues in our life with no change coming from ourselves. The overindulging of negativity and artificial acknowledgment go hand in hand in our society. We see all the bad in the world and we crave all the acknowledgement on social media to make sure that we are not a part of the problem. Unlike many posts that I see ending with, "you're part of the problem", I don't think you, the reader, are the problem. I don't know exactly what "the problem" is to be honest. We discuss issues we have no control over and if the people around us don't look at the problem the same way, (most likely due them having other priorities with their lives which is apart of life) then they are "the problem". That is clearly irrational and not fair to someone who has less interest on something you are passionate about. It's perfectly fine being passionate, but it is also okay with other people not being passionate about the same thing. You can disagree and still be friends. You can disagree and love someone. Social media divides people to a "your either with us or against us" mindset which we are so much more complex than that. We live in the world of gray yet we try to make everything black and white. Not everything must be absolute.

Closing Thoughts

Finally, I want to leave the thought of what once was considered an advancement in our society has now became a dependence on our freedom. This can be seen in the show Manhunt: Unabomber, where the main protagonist is having a conversation with the Unabomber. The Unabomber discuss how one day he heard a bird imitate a car alarm, how something beautiful as a bird is now imatating something so annoying. The protagonist empathizes where one time he sat at a red light for a long amount of time even though no one was around him. This scene caught my attention due to the good point they make in the discussion. Think how much our lively hood is depended on cars, phones, and internet. That technology is a part of our lives and without could change everything. I know I have to have a vehicle for my job, I have to have a phone for all my communication, I have to have electricity, I have to have internet for my job. We need these to survive. I know that someone can argue that you can live without some of these things, but it does make life much more difficult. Social media was not created for what it is today. The news wasn't created for what it is today either. The amount of articles from all these websites become bias because it appeals to their audience. Of course Fox News will discuss more for Trump because they know Trump supporters watch Fox News. The same can go with CNN reporting more against Trump because they know many more of their viewers are against Trump. Journalism is a business model and like every business they need to make money. I know this article has a lot of debate and I would love to hear from you. Do you think we overindulge in the world and in technology? Do you believe that this is holding us back for a better future?