And we tend to romanticize the past.
Pollution is as old as humanity. Old Egypt, Rome, Peru etc suffered from it.
War has been there since mankind.
Imagine being born in 1900 in Europe.
Human rights ? That wasn’t even an expression.
On the other hand our news are focused on everything that is wrong, sad and bad. Good news are simply not news.
We are trapped by social media in a downward spiral.
I don’t say that we live in heaven, hell (…) no, but it’s not so bad, and it’s worth it. I believe in human resilience. Maybe I’m an utopist
I certainly don’t raise my daughters telling them everything is doomed, and their future looks dark.
And yes, of course, it’s not easy sometimes…
As Dolores said “Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty.”
Back in the day, people had a morning and evening newspaper, local news on tv and radio for a half hour a couple times a day, and network news in the morning and evening. They processed it and discussed it with their family, around the water cooler. People processed this through their own ideological filters but the inputs weren’t nearly as slanted one way or the other. The rest of the time, they got on about their day, as there were more immediate and pressing things to get after.
What if sold as “news” today is already been marinated in ideological slant, which gets futher amplified when it hits the person’s ideological filter, creating a feedback loop. Even worse, people tend to only consume “news” from sources that align with their personal ideology because of confirmation bias…oh, and it’s 24 hours a day.
The internet has “democratized” opinion in that everyone no has a platform for their own expression of their views. In principle, this is a positive development, but in practice it can be extremely negative. Sure, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and the expression thereof, but are all opinions entitled to equal weight and consideration? Should I care what some pop-star, professional athlete, billionaire, socialite or social media “influncer” thinks about issues outside of their areas of talent and expertise?
And politicians are the worst of the lot. What qualifies them to tell me what to think and feel? That’s not their job. Their job is to ask me and everyone else what we think and feel about an issue, gather information from true experts in their respective fields, and then act in the best interests of those whom they claim to represent.
End of my non-partisan rant. Take it for what it’s worth, as I’m just a guy with an opinion and a platform.
Meh. The world is neither good nor bad. It just is. How I allow the events of it to shape my mood is completely on me. I am not Atlas and I do not need to carry the burden of this planet on my shoulders. I do my part where I can to improve what little things I actually have control over. I do my best to recycle, try to give back to my community, and maybe start some internet fights on Facebook.
As an alcoholic my natural state of being is selfish and self centered. It would be easy to take the issues of the world and make them my own. This is why I continue to work on my sobriety to avoid the sneaky pitfalls of the disease.
