…That I want to live in Europe?
Ok, not exactly breaking news.
I try to avoid reading or listening to the news. I find, at least in our country, that we have crossed over a line of exaggeration and judgment that may not ever be crossed back again. It pains me to watch the time and effort (not to mention money) wasted on lawsuits and fights against the perception of what people will lose… or the complex psychological resentment of authority and the need to protest matters that are not well researched based on that resentment. There is a feverish and scary divide in this country and from it there is intense anger, name-calling and horribly uneducated opinions flying aimlessly in conversation and in public speaking.
And then there is the internet.
In this day and age everyone has an opinion. Everyone in this country has that right. But what happens when everyone needs to tell everyone else how they feel? It ends up in negatives. It is angry and it is often about being right. The negatives are cyclical… if people are not happy in any aspect of their own life there is an outlet now to come on to the internet and spew that venom back… at a political topic, a TV show or just in general everyday topics. The funny thing is that so much of this sort of behavior is natural and harmless. Words can only hurt as much as those of us reading allow them to. Yelling an insult on a message board is actually rather non-effective. Who is writing it? What does it really matter what some anonymous person is saying to you? How do you even know they are actually talking to you … or reacting to something in their own life?
I do not want to deny people their right to an opinion… or how they should express it. How could I… I am here doing the same thing. I have tried to create habits within my own experience to make sure that what I write is always solution based (we’ll get to that…) but it is not for me to say that is either the only way… or the “right” way to express.
The fact remains that no matter how many lines are crossed in this country It is important to remember that the country allows the freedom of all this and that is something to be grateful for. Turn that coin around, however, and you will find the lines I see being crossed getting closer and closer and closer. People are assuming the worst of any and all behaviors that they read very little about. Any “newsworthy” item with little to no information is designed to elicit ratings and reaction by assigning a villain that the folks who partake can instantly judge and condemn while psychologically building themselves up to be the “better person”. In the predominant amount of these judgments those who are doing so ARE probably “better” in the term of the topic involved. The question I would pose is whether or not all of the story is evident… or available. Far too often people’s lives are being torn apart in big or small ways for a news story… or for the simple reason that everything is built on personal morals… but everyone’s morals and “rules” are different…. so again… right? Wrong? How do we really know.
I worry about the fact that people are tried and convicted in the news before the law actually has the opportunity. I wonder why people are so scared of the human body or freedom and open-minds. I question why I, as a human being, will always be considered as a lower class, non-equal human being in the eyes of our law because I am gay. I shake my head when I read that five years later the FCC is still trying to do something about Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “Nipple gate”. Really?
So is moving to Europe my answer? Sometimes I believe so. There is more of a simplicity in thought there. It isn’t as though Europe does not have opinions, anger or ego. It does. Everyone does…. but the obvious hang-ups and growing vigilante mentality that is happening in the U.S. is not evident nearly as much outside of this country. Again, I do not deny those who need to live by certain morals or puritanical thought process their right to do so. But unfortunately here in the United States the tendency is to demand that everyone live by them.
The obvious solution is to remember that I don’t have to do this. The obvious solution would be to not watch or read the news (which has the tendency to highlight the negatives and make if FEEL that there is more of this than there probably is…) The FUN solution is to move to Europe.
Hey… It’s my blog.
Be Happy. Be Well. Be.