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The Context of our Lives
What is the context of our lives?
I can sit in front of a television, or I can avoid the television like the plague... it wouldn't change much. Things continue to get stranger and stranger.
Reality is based in anchors. Before television, what were our anchors? Our community, our family, and newspapers. Now we are overloaded with things that are extra-reality - yet these things shape reality. Advertisements and television are filled with things more and more spectacular to engage us more deeply and affect us strongly to make an impression.
The impression is lasting.
Collectively, social norms are changing at an accelerated pace. Change is normal, but usually happens after being hashed out as each generation confronts it collectively. Instead, now, change is being force fed to us. We're losing personal investment in the shape of our reality. Anchors are drifting from what is directly around us to what is viewed before us. As our focus continues to push outward we lose more and more of our inward world.
History will look at this period of time as The Lost Age. The Age where people lost everything that naturally grounded them into their lives.
What will bring us collectively back to what should anchor us? Individually, it takes revolt. Collectively, then, it will take a sort of revolution. This revolution will be caused by one of two things: 1) an organized movement of people fed up with how things are taking shape, or 2) a massive breakdown of the fabric that holds our society together.
I see no reason to believe that we are heading toward anything but a massive breakdown.
I don't know what to think really. There are two things worth focusing on: 1) how to work towards collective change, and 2) how to work towards grounding myself individually. Working towards individual ends is easy... my desires for society will take a lot more mental work before I will come up with any answers. I know, however, that I have to keep thinking about it. We all should.
We can't afford to let our collective reality to continue to decay into extremity. It is something we should be worried about...
I can sit in front of a television, or I can avoid the television like the plague... it wouldn't change much. Things continue to get stranger and stranger.
Reality is based in anchors. Before television, what were our anchors? Our community, our family, and newspapers. Now we are overloaded with things that are extra-reality - yet these things shape reality. Advertisements and television are filled with things more and more spectacular to engage us more deeply and affect us strongly to make an impression.
The impression is lasting.
Collectively, social norms are changing at an accelerated pace. Change is normal, but usually happens after being hashed out as each generation confronts it collectively. Instead, now, change is being force fed to us. We're losing personal investment in the shape of our reality. Anchors are drifting from what is directly around us to what is viewed before us. As our focus continues to push outward we lose more and more of our inward world.
History will look at this period of time as The Lost Age. The Age where people lost everything that naturally grounded them into their lives.
What will bring us collectively back to what should anchor us? Individually, it takes revolt. Collectively, then, it will take a sort of revolution. This revolution will be caused by one of two things: 1) an organized movement of people fed up with how things are taking shape, or 2) a massive breakdown of the fabric that holds our society together.
I see no reason to believe that we are heading toward anything but a massive breakdown.
I don't know what to think really. There are two things worth focusing on: 1) how to work towards collective change, and 2) how to work towards grounding myself individually. Working towards individual ends is easy... my desires for society will take a lot more mental work before I will come up with any answers. I know, however, that I have to keep thinking about it. We all should.
We can't afford to let our collective reality to continue to decay into extremity. It is something we should be worried about...
posted by Will at 9:24 PM
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