Some Random Thoughts, Sunday Apr 29 2007
A Kaleidoscope World
The world is changing so fast and the rate of change is accelerating. Especially in technology. And with technological change our culture evolves and morphs completely beyond recognition sometimes. What we assume to be true or real overnight becomes untrue or invalid. Our cultural landscape becomes unrecognizable and with changes coming constantly and so quickly, we can easily become disoriented. It is as if we are trying to make sense of our world each day by looking through the eyepiece of a kaleidoscope and trying to make sense of the changing pattern of colors and shapes that we see.
The Tsunami World of the Information Age
Pundits have called this time the age of information. So much information. Too much information for any one person to ever be able to process. When my family and I visited Disneyworld in Orlando, one of our group and I took in the ESPN pub on the Boardwalk, near Epcot. On the walls throughout the watering hold were about fifty television screens, each with a different ball game or sport event. It was just too much to try to take in, so I had to filter out all but one screen that had a specific football game. It would have been simply overwhelming to try to absorb the input about each game or event being telecast in that room.
Except for a few isolated places on this very small planet, there are few places in which we will not be bombarded by images and voices and sounds from every angle. The danger is that at every turn we will be swept off our feet by a torrant of images and sounds and words. Every time we try to pick ourselves up and regain our psychological balance, another wave sweeps in and throws us off balance yet one more time. What is real? Who is telling the truth? Does the data support the dire predictions we are presented with? What is important and what is insignificant? Who is good and who is bad? What is good and what is bad? What is real and what is just a mirage? I think this is less an age of information than it is an age of misinformation. Overloaded with conflicting claims, we must sort through all the media noise to sort out a truth that works for us. We probably "know" little more than we did before, but we certainly have a lot more alleged "facts" to sort through before we can settle upon our own sense of the reality of the situation.
Choosing Our Words Carefully
Our uttered words, our written words, the images we create... they all can hurt and injure us and others and our world. We have to choose our words carefully and we have to be aware of the effect upon others that the images we create have. Carefully tailored words can lead a nation into a needless war. Carefully chosen words can bring healing to other people. Images and words, well crafted, can bring understanding or can instigate others to act on hatred, prejudice and the aggressive impulse. A song softly sung can lull a child to sleep. A song earnestly sung can mobilize an entire nation to betray whatever civilized impulses and become a nation of morally devoid and ethically twisted individuals. Deutchland. Deutchland. Uber alles.
We must ever be mindful of what we say and what we do, because every word we utter and every action we take will change the world, if only by a little. We cannot take back anything we say or do. The genie, either beneficent or malevolent, will have already escaped the bottle and what follows will become a matter of recorded history. When something bad happens because of us, we will lamely say, "But I did not mean for that to happen. I certainly did not want that to happen. Can't you see that?" Few will believe us, and rightly so.
Our world and human society... everything exists because of a delicate balance of many things. One misstep on our part and that balance can be disturbed. Like a tight rope walker, we have to move though this life a bit more carefully, taking great care in how we act... in what we say, lest something that we do will will become that last straw that breaks the camel's back.
The world is changing so fast and the rate of change is accelerating. Especially in technology. And with technological change our culture evolves and morphs completely beyond recognition sometimes. What we assume to be true or real overnight becomes untrue or invalid. Our cultural landscape becomes unrecognizable and with changes coming constantly and so quickly, we can easily become disoriented. It is as if we are trying to make sense of our world each day by looking through the eyepiece of a kaleidoscope and trying to make sense of the changing pattern of colors and shapes that we see.
The Tsunami World of the Information Age
Pundits have called this time the age of information. So much information. Too much information for any one person to ever be able to process. When my family and I visited Disneyworld in Orlando, one of our group and I took in the ESPN pub on the Boardwalk, near Epcot. On the walls throughout the watering hold were about fifty television screens, each with a different ball game or sport event. It was just too much to try to take in, so I had to filter out all but one screen that had a specific football game. It would have been simply overwhelming to try to absorb the input about each game or event being telecast in that room.
Except for a few isolated places on this very small planet, there are few places in which we will not be bombarded by images and voices and sounds from every angle. The danger is that at every turn we will be swept off our feet by a torrant of images and sounds and words. Every time we try to pick ourselves up and regain our psychological balance, another wave sweeps in and throws us off balance yet one more time. What is real? Who is telling the truth? Does the data support the dire predictions we are presented with? What is important and what is insignificant? Who is good and who is bad? What is good and what is bad? What is real and what is just a mirage? I think this is less an age of information than it is an age of misinformation. Overloaded with conflicting claims, we must sort through all the media noise to sort out a truth that works for us. We probably "know" little more than we did before, but we certainly have a lot more alleged "facts" to sort through before we can settle upon our own sense of the reality of the situation.
Choosing Our Words Carefully
Our uttered words, our written words, the images we create... they all can hurt and injure us and others and our world. We have to choose our words carefully and we have to be aware of the effect upon others that the images we create have. Carefully tailored words can lead a nation into a needless war. Carefully chosen words can bring healing to other people. Images and words, well crafted, can bring understanding or can instigate others to act on hatred, prejudice and the aggressive impulse. A song softly sung can lull a child to sleep. A song earnestly sung can mobilize an entire nation to betray whatever civilized impulses and become a nation of morally devoid and ethically twisted individuals. Deutchland. Deutchland. Uber alles.
We must ever be mindful of what we say and what we do, because every word we utter and every action we take will change the world, if only by a little. We cannot take back anything we say or do. The genie, either beneficent or malevolent, will have already escaped the bottle and what follows will become a matter of recorded history. When something bad happens because of us, we will lamely say, "But I did not mean for that to happen. I certainly did not want that to happen. Can't you see that?" Few will believe us, and rightly so.
Our world and human society... everything exists because of a delicate balance of many things. One misstep on our part and that balance can be disturbed. Like a tight rope walker, we have to move though this life a bit more carefully, taking great care in how we act... in what we say, lest something that we do will will become that last straw that breaks the camel's back.
posted by hfireman | 11:50 PM
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