Essay: Where no understanding exists

 Ten people witness an accident and they all think: “someone will get help”. The likelihood that anyone in the group will get help is low. That phenomenon is heavily discussed in social psychology. Like it, there is a conversational fallacy that has witnessed an increase in recent years: people should stop taking things so seriously.

A Google search returned over 1.3 billion results on the statement. Elbert Hubbard said: “Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.” In this age of social media, is it hard to not take life too seriously, or is it rather taking words too seriously that is the problem? Hard to say. Something read is often internalized. Once that happens, we use the glue we call thinking to adhere meaning to it not derived from the reading, but from the internalization.  Nothing wrong with that. However, where the issue becomes problematic is it begins to be reinterpreted from person to person not from its original form, but from the regards noted in an answer; this is the online equivalent of sitting in a group and passing a secret along the line to see what the message is when it reaches the last person. 

If a person was raised in the brutal climate of African tribal ethnic cleansing, their view of issues may be centered in their surviving memories and struggles throughout.  In contrast, a person raised in a suburb in the United States may have a perspective that deals in inequalities, and social issues they have no real experience on, but have read plenty about. When each of those two persons reads a post in a social media outlet, their interpretation will be in part based on those views of how and where they were raised, cultural interpretation of issues, internal familial trauma/discord, and their particular life situations to name a few. Their response will come plagued with their respective background. It is impossible to understand any one person in a world of so many known and unknown divisive subjects like cultural diversity, racial divide, political squabbling, socioeconomic statuses, numerous religious views and interpretations, and personal tribulations. 

Conversation in relation to understanding do not complement one another. In the same fashion, it would be prudent to note that in social media as well as other social interactions like text messaging, will be all but incomprehensible without a form of explanation from the originator(s). Just because two things are related it doesn’t mean they cause or are results of one another. It would be ignorant to demand or expect tolerance in a format that is by itself bereft of rules.  There are conversational rules, but everyone doesn’t know what they are in the same way that persons throw etiquette out of a dinner by putting their elbows over a table during a banquet or reading texts in the middle of a physical conversation during the same.  Yet, it would be just  as problematic to dissect any one comment by the mere convention of thinking or listening. There is just too much we do not know about what is contained in the original statement.  Still, we demand understanding simply because a subject appears to be simple and straight-forward based on all things known, felt, and lived by the interpreter; how inconsequentially disparate a statement to say understanding any particular subject is simple.

The aforementioned Elbert Hubbard is regarded as also having said: “He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.” Silence is no friend of the 21st century. Social media has become this era’s Platonic marketplace in or by a society that by mere sharing brings about social contemplation of matters at times foreign to the reader. It is in this sense that social media is the forefront of promoting knowledge of matters experienced or thought about by others. It is in no sense to be derived that social media or online forums carry any scientific validity to comments therein; this is also true of forums opened by intellectuals and actual members of the scientific community. While a sentiment certainly is shared by a view, opinion, or finding, it becomes the responsibility of otherwise totally irresponsible persons to understand the meaning based on the speaker. However, this seldom happens. What happens, as explained, is that there is an internalization of what is seen/read/heard and once that is done, the scientific validity disappears; after all thoughts are not inherently peer-reviewed by the scientific community before having been posted -most times.

A pervasive misrepresentation of ideals and ideas prevails throughout the history of the internet as more complex systems enter the social spaces and internet with unsolved riddles of communication in this complex space becoming forgotten and more convoluted by the natural evolution of the space and users.  It is easy to pick on a subject, to take things apart, and to disregard others. By contrast, delving into any matter for what it really means based on the originator’s background, attempting to reconstruct subjects, and regarding the many differences that make humanity unique could be said to be a more benevolent and worthwhile endeavor.  Differences are part of our humanity as much as blood resides in us all.  Vast are the spaces we occupy and quite unique each one, with more than just our understanding to populate any observed matter.  We should attempt to understand what our responsibilities are in social spaces, even if we decide to ignore them. The sharing of our interpretation of a subject may be fine and well at times, but like reading a room, formats should be considered before any internalization is to take place; our interpretation is more-often-than-not unwarranted. What we feel when we read something is personal, what we write is not for what we share is public. Saying that something was merely an opinion is baseless in that there should be a certain level of responsibility that comes with the opinion.  Shifting forms of communication, new social platforms and ways to communicate in and through them, and other changes are bound to happen. It is easier to ignore someone we feel is ignorant of something than to attempt to reach an understanding using our intellectual capacity for thought. It is practical to move on in our busy lives and disregard something we consider inaccurate or superfluous to the whole. Despite its practicality we see more people taking to social platforms to argue the unarguable where no understanding exists.

Essay: Despite our beautiful differences

 The population of the United States appears to have been increasing by about 100 million every 50 years for the past 100 years.  The world population by contrast has increased almost exponentially in the same time.  The mentality of the populace has changed dramatically from the days of slavery, no women votes, the various wars, social advances, equality measures, and so much more.  I enjoy the lessons the past carries and thus work hard to improve areas of my life on lessons learned from previous experience(s); it is an attempt to make today and perhaps a possible future better for family, self, and others.  But what is society doing?

I speak of society as the collection of humanity that composes the almost 8 billion human inhabitants of this Earth.  The drive to become, to please, and to succeed can in ways be compared to previous generations.  Certainly there has been change in the sciences, life circumstances, and certainly technology.   In this year (2020) I have pondered long about the aspect of society that has morphed rapidly into a community of the internet.  Years past we could possibly separate humanity into religions, scientific endeavors reached and surpassed, sports, arts, and other meaningful ways philosophically argued overtime.  A new segment of society has reached an all-time metamorphosis where online no longer means what a lot of older brains associate the word with.  A lot of the youth live and thrive through social interaction in games, classrooms, virtual reality environments, augmented reality sharing, and the convenience of artificial technology gadgets from phones to personal assistants in the home, not to mention online shopping and banking.  The fellowship of the online is increasing and with more implications that a lot dare to posit.

In an epoch of space exploration we must understand the importance of networks that will allow humanity not only to reach into the stars, but to also continue to communicate out there.  The social networks we have formed on Earth could be nothing more than a preceding wave of new living/interaction for the species as we fare into the darkness of our galaxy.  With smog affecting large cities, climate changes beginning to erode away living space, the possible move into the cosmos, and so much more, the outside world is not only becoming overcrowded everywhere, but it is perhaps time that we look deeply into new forms of societal development based on the reality we live in today, and not a romanticized past that while important for preventing mirrored errors, nothing short of ignorant of all present realities.  

I am a gamer.  No, I don’t make a living on social media doing so like many others have the opportunity to, it is a hobby and pastime.  My son is an avid reader who from an early age was read to, later on began reading, and today has partially moved from physical books, to a myriad of online forums that allow for his mental and social development to continue in ways I could not have foreseen.  This is a direct result of the new social norms being established by progressives who accept the present for the opportunities it presents, the young who know no other life or world, and those who little-by-little find more online that they previously were oblivious to, yet now take to social spaces.  From being able to share recipes with others, discuss political matters, argue the importance or fallacies of religious endeavors, to disconnect from everyday matters, find a new hobby, watch a video, write on a blog, read a book, draw a sketch, or any of the thousands of things one could participate in from the comfort of their home, the online community continues to form new ties and avenues of communication and entertainment.  

A surge in social restructuring appears to be taking place as we approach the year 2021.  While some countries continue to heavily regulate online activities, the United States -among others- has seen an increase in movements to attempt to better certain systems, whether private or otherwise, that in some form affect the livelihood of humanity.  A few years back I learned about something called whitewashing in films.  The past few years have seen a resurgence in polarizing matters surrounding blacks and whites alike around the world in both positive and negative ways.  There appears to be no incontrovertible proof to claims raised in various social mediums with realities beginning to go unnoticed and at times unattended due to the saturation of issues from seemingly one moment to the next plastered in social mediums.  News outlets, understanding the impact of this on some whose lives are lived in online formats, have begun to pay more attention to these enigmatic calls for reform as they can be easily sensationalized for the public.

Partly due to the nature of older individuals’ inability to forgo a life long-ago lived, the present continues to be misunderstood by a mentality of comparison between what is and was, instead of really delving into what is now becoming nothing more than a subject of conversation.  I am glad, to a high degree, no news worldwide appears to be worthy of announcement other than throngs of accounts in social mediums discussing how an episode of a popular streaming show is being unfair to a segment of a community.  Social media has in part become a place for gossip.   We understand the concept of gossip for the same reasons I describe throughout this discourse, someone in our past -or present- has done it.   It is good that there are groups that look out for the welfare of animals, handicapped, racially misunderstood/mistreated persons, fight for attention to species on land and sea that are suffering/disappearing, and much more.  It is good for humanity to be involved in things they care about.  There is an imperative to defend your beliefs.   Yet, I find myself in a very conflicting reality where the choice to care, the ability to decide what to like and dislike, and the dialogue it should bring is all but disappearing.  Discourse has become a fallacy of the online community except for philosophically driven formats, the news of the hour and feeds uncontrollably announcing and denouncing this and that.  Not only that, but everything online is now palaver to one person or another with the acronym TL:DR (too long don’t read) being as pervasive as the inherent subject.  One interesting problem is that in a lot of instances a lot of the findings presented as proof for something comes from a learned person.  A lot of science has happened by accident, but it didn’t become science without replication.  Yet, there are those who argue for inherent fallacies within scientific findings and confounding as it is they gain track.  I offer an example to explain this.  A person hunting in the woods, wearing an orange vest, with a crossbow on their back, a long shotgun in hand, a hat with local/nearby flora dangling off it, pants tracking nearby brush, and boots covered in the areas soot passes in front of you as you go hunting for the first time.  Would you be inclined to ask this person for tips? Would you ask  them anything relating to your first-time expectations? Would you ask about dangers in the area like loose soil or rocks, cliffs, and perils? I very possibly would.  The person certainly looks the part! However, I know nothing about hunting and I would argue that my description of the person described may be accurate to a degree of someone with experience hunting.  An orator, a person whose speaking/writing is eloquent, can manifest great feelings on others.  That is not to say the orator, like the hunter, has any actual experience.  

While arguments about the validity of something or other are good in avoiding perpetuity in things that should perhaps be revisited from time to time due to the natural evolution of things and humanity, a problem arises when wanting a conversation is frowned upon; rather a person may choose instead to impose their belief in others.   With some systems in place already that reward you for following trends, being part of ongoing positive movements, and praising the political parties in power, as more of these systems form and become rapidly engaged, the obfuscation of truth happens merely by participation regardless of the intent.  In a society where there is a place or community online for a large array of persons, likes, and more, there is one thing, one community that should not be overlooked.  

Some would argue that in one form chaos would see the annihilation of a thing for its own sake.  It is the hobby of some and the actual work of others to search through online social mediums for polarizing issues and blatantly demean what is being portrayed for the enjoyment derived from the arguments that form as a result.  Because discourse is seldom sought-after as a means of communication between online persons, what ensues is often disgruntled arguments about how the person posting is right because of this or that and how the other is wrong, which in turn begets the same in kind; at times this lasts hours to weeks depending on the platform with the initial perpetrator and those who join them being satisfied to no avail by the masses.  While the perpetrator certainly has a part in the dilemma, another part of the problem is the inability to display emotion through a line of text.  Certainly there are those who use the assistance of emoticons to the benefit of a conversion to make it more lively, show or express a particular emotion, and for other reasons.  Yet, there are those who also use the emoticons to assail and interject grief into any given subject.  

I argue this is no different than the sarcasm many use in day-to-day conversation.  Some readily understand the nature of the intended comment while others take to becoming irate by the disregard of the person using the sarcasm.  While this form of acerbity is not new, a lot of the online community completely ignores this aspect of communication which is just as much a defense mechanism used by some, as well as the purposeful push over the gaping abyss of reason that makes others so inexplicably discontent.

We as a collective human species have a lot to learn from one another.  With more than 7 billion inhabitants around it is easy to see how a point of view can be easily misunderstood or blatantly taken out of proportions.  Online communities continue to segregate into more cohesive cohorts as time passes and the thick-skin required for online interaction continues to be tested by all alike.  Perhaps a time is near -or far- when these tumultuous times of online socializing help us to bridge the gaps brought by having to communicate with family and friends on nearby stars, planets, or missions in the cosmos.  I believe even then, humans will continue to look back, perhaps in new ways as Earth becomes a faraway dream and fantasize of beaches and landscapes lush with green… Perhaps that may be the new marginalizing subject debated by future generations.  My journey through life, society, Earth, social media, and expectations will die when death collects my debt, but I do hope that humanity thrives despite our beautiful differences.