DRiccio21 wrote: ↑Wed May 25, 2022 1:26 pm
our hot take/debate society always wants THE ANSWER and to FIX things. these things are a product of multiple factors and there are no simple answers/ solutions.
The hot take/debate society is driven by technology/social media. Everyone has 15min of fame at their fingertips.
all the things we're discussing are absolutely factors. corey listed a bunch of them. gun control is obviously an enormous issue... they are all parts of the problem. even when you say something like 'mental health' that is essentially incorporating EVERY aspect of living as that's what leads to ones 'mental health'.
At the root of most of the things listed is social media and ease of communication.
one factor corey didn't mention that won't be popular but i've thought of a lot over the past decade (mostly when i think about my own existence) is that the removal of religion from our society has a major impact on how we live.
1) we don't have a 'fear' of a god or heaven/hell. in the past people lived with certain fear that their actions would impact their after life.
I didn't grow up in church, I don't currently go to church, but I often think back to my time at Indiana Wesleyan. I didn't learn much of anything in terms of business for my degree, but I took away so much from the theology coursework. Not only was it eye opening to see how many people lived in conflict with their true worldview, it was just as eye opening for me to get a better definition of mine. I'm sure it's not the case for most people in these courses, but going through the program with a few other fathers and mothers, while having a professor that was quite open-minded about our various upbringings, gave us all a huge perspective.
2) we live for ourselves and are very ego driven rather than living for a god or religion or community. in a world when you only live for yourself and you start to get depressed about your existence you lose everything and can crumble into doing terrible things and/or become suicidal. when you live for a god or for others you can always have a purpose.
3) religion gave many people a sense of belonging to a community, now many people's only 'community' is a phone and social media.
The need to inflate the ego is in-line with the need to impress the "community" of Instagram, Facebook Tik Tok, etc. I'm highly involved in my local community (coaching, schools, local businesses) and the signs are everywhere. I see 40yo bikers posting pics at he local bar with their buds, but never posting a pic kicking a ball with their kids. Mom's with 100 duck face photos, but nothing with their family. I watch parents show up to practice, direct their kid to the field and then bury their face in their phones. Families at the restaurant order their meals and parents and kids dive right into their devices. Kids go to the park to sit on the bench and scroll their phones, side by side... without talking.
again i know religion isn't popular and i don't practice any religion but i'm a big believer that the absence of religion creates a lot of voids which can potentially lead to chaos. with that said, fighting over religions causes a whole other level of pain so religion has its obvious downsides too.
Religion isn't a pre-requisite for faith and morality. It's ok to believe in something, even if you can't define it.
last thing i'll say... the world isn't bad. bad things happen but the world is full of good.
If people take nothing else from what you said, it's this. It's really true. My only concern is that if we continue to take it for granted and highlight the bad in the world, we're destined for bad things.
every generation has recency biases where they believe their issues are THE biggest, most unfathomable issues that have ever occurred. our parents felt that way about something, their parents felt that way about something... we aren't the first people who have said 'this world is going to shit' its VERY easy to focus on negativity and fear. we almost strive for it (hence why the nightly news is full of horrible shit) as it helps us rationalize/downplay our own issues.
This is the 1 place I think we differ here. There is no comparable monster of technology/social media. So many of the prior generations' issues are consolidated and magnified today.
if you want to 'FIX' this type of stuff from happening, go out and be kind to others. smile, stop bitching, stop fighting with others on the internet, believe in good, live a good existence when nobody is watching that you can be proud of. those behaviors will have an impact on those who look at you (kids, wife, friends, co workers) and that is what slowly changes your environments. we all either give energy to the world or suck it from the world, think about how your actions/words/thoughts impact others... all of that matters.
Slowly changes environments and greatly changes lives.
Appreciate your post Dave. Well said.
