Real Substance

January 22, 2018 at 7:16 pm

Lately I’ve found myself getting more and more fed up with society.  From fake news to people showing off a fake version of themselves online, it’s just gotten to the point at which I have a very strong desire for things to be real.  I’m a millennial. I was born just in time to live the digital revolution and the further it progresses, the more disgusted with it I am and the more empty it seems to become.  It’s not just the Internet though, or the PC, or smartphone.  It seems as if society in general is gravitating toward the lowest common denominator.  Prime time television just continues to pump out mindless garbage — brainless sitcoms, yet another predictable drama about first responders, or the latest iteration of some starry-eyed individual singing/dancing/doing stupid human tricks for a shot at fame and fortune.  Sure, there are exceptions (This Is Us being one), but the general goal seems to be a total lack of substance.

Social media isn’t any better.  It’s absolutely overflowing with mindless junk.  Pointless quizzes about silly topics that spit out totally useless results.  “News” articles that offer the writers obnoxious and baseless opinion on some hot button topic under a click-bait headline.  Semi-anonymous individuals trolling and spewing hatred and filth through their keyboards into the ether of the World Wide Web.

If we were to draw a comparison to food, spending time watching television or aimlessly scrolling through social media is, at best as good for you as glutting yourself on fast food and candy, and at worst, seasoning your Big Mac with arsenic.  If politics is involved, you might as well just pop a cyanide tablet with how ugly and toxic that topic has become over the last year.  It’s all horrendous.

I want substance.  I want originality.  I want authenticity.  I want to abandon this garbage to retreat to a cabin in the woods with a stockpile of OLD books and the people I care about.

We live in a world where civility, wisdom, and authentic, thoughtful communication are becoming quite rare.  It’s demoralizing and it is so wrong.

If this resonates with you, go have a deep conversation with someone.  Go pick up a challenging book and dive in.  Turn off your phone, step away from the computer, and ground yourself in nature, or physical work, or something that makes you feel alive.

If you think all of this was just a silly rant and that your time would have been better spent watching another episode of Modern Family, please go back to chewing on Tide Pods.

/rant


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