Author: admin

The stories that we hear

In many ways, don’t the stories we hear shape us? Becoming the characters, events, words, places and moods that populate our inner landscapes of meaning. Drawing us together with those who share our narratives, perhaps having crafted their lives or sense of self around whichever elements resonated most with their own storylines or struggles. (Notes One)

Almost as if these imaginary worlds spun around our heads draw us in to let us become part of them, then blend back into “reality” through our identification with and discussion of them. Becoming part of “our” world through our affinity with and embodiment of them, perhaps? We follow their lead, adopting certain appearances, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions or behaviours based upon the example they’ve offered us.

It’s one of these strange questions: what do we “get” from culture, from the stories it tells us? Is this escapism, as the storyteller weaves the elements of reality into some reassuring, neatly resolved form we can travel along with to a worthwhile destination? Is this a form of education, as we experience versions of life from others perspectives, real or imaginary, by seeing through different eyes? (Notes Two)

If it’s drawing from reality as much as feeding back into it, is this a process of society reflecting upon itself and exploring its options? That we would all contemplate these versions of reality and decide for ourselves which paths we’ll take in response. A sort of digestive process running alongside our collective existence; mulling over the details of our lives to separate the essential from all the rest.

Whether we’re talking about cultural life itself or the more everyday commentary of the media, isn’t it all telling us about our world? Showing us what’s admirable or deplorable; hoping that we’re able to tell the difference. This more or less symbolic overlay that takes the elements of “life” and recasts them in a different light to offer us greater clarity over how to read, evaluate and respond to all we see around us.

And it seems like the ideas we have in mind must make a difference (Notes Three). Don’t we interpret everything we meet in the light of whatever overarching sense of meaning we’ve established so far? The stories of childhood, education, history, culture and everyday life effectively forging some sort of personal picture of what life is, what it means, what matters, how we should approach it, and so forth.

What, then, are those pictures? Between all the voices telling us countless stories over the years, what picture’s that going to have created in each individual’s mind? And, how well are they blending back into reality through the choices we’re making in response? Where earlier societies had fairly consistent, firmly held, closely monitored stories and practices holding them together, we now have such incredible freedom (Notes Four).

If the stories we hear and conclusions we draw from them are serving to inform who and how we are in life, what are we to make of that opportunity?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Stories that bind us
Note 1: Culture as what we relate to
Note 1: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 1: Living your life through a song
Note 2: What’s the idea with culture?
Note 2: Culture as reflection
Note 3: The sense of having a worldview
Note 3: Culture as information
Note 3: Visual language and spaces
Note 3: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 4: Making things up as we go along
Note 4: Plato & “The Republic”
Note 4: Culture as a conversation across time

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Reading between the lines

Between all we hear and read each day, is there a space where both the truth of events and our best response to them become clear? As if, by finding our way through all the agendas, opinions and sensational curiosity baiting, there’s a place “the truth” of any given situation rests. Then, a response within us that can somehow match it and serve to bring essential values to life.

Because, often, it seems all the information being thrown at us is simply confusion: countless differing perspectives, interpretations or priorities clamouring to have us accept “their” version of events then live our lives accordingly (Notes One). Shaping the ideas people have in mind and act upon seems a lucrative business, for whatever reason.

With so many voices attempting to find their ways into our heads and influence the thoughts we’ll entertain there, isn’t it increasingly difficult to actually be sure of “truth”? Everything being so dialled up, so extreme, so emotive must risk desensitising us to the realities of life (Notes Two). As if the new base level for taking something seriously is this tense, screaming voice of impending doom. Can’t truth be spoken calmly?

In part, it’s perhaps because we’re now aware of so much and how many of our systems are interconnected: bringing “everything” to awareness, we can arguably create the changes necessary to eradicate all the many, many problems the world and its people are burdened with. This sense of everything both mattering and being connected, in some way, with suffering either now, in the past or in the future.

The world becoming conscious of itself and attempting to bring everything that matters to the table “must” be a recipe for overwhelm. Not only is life now more complex and demanding than even the fairly recent past, but we’re being asked to become aware of all the personal, global situations that have and do go into making our lives what they now are.

In that, how are we to tune out all the superfluous voices and tune into all those that convey the truth? How are we to gain a clear sense of how things stand and what all of our lives are playing into? Is it possible to get to that “place” where, in our minds, we can see the truth of our situation with all its multifaceted difficulties? Can the human mind still bend itself around “how we live” without crumpling under the pressure?

And, if we can, is there a clear path for how we might resolve things? How we might stand in the world with regard to every single thing that matters within it. How we might communicate these concerns without life descending into one argument after another. How we might handle this awareness of things outside our capacity for control without feeling completely powerless. (Notes Three)

If information is there to help us understand reality and choose wisely within it, how are we to assimilate all this and not be debilitated by it?

Notes and References:

Note 1: What is the public conversation?
Note 1: Information might be there, but can we find it?
Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 1: Which voice can we trust?
Note 2: Effect, if everything’s a drama
Note 2: Desensitised to all we’re told?
Note 2: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 3: The value & cost of our words
Note 3: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 3: Ways thought adds spin to life
Note 3: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 3: Too much responsibility?

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Nature & the fulfilment of potential

As humans, aren’t we generally trying to hold things back or let them go? As if nature, creativity or life itself are these forces we either set loose or restrain for some reason – usually, a reason that suits “us” (Notes One).

Thinking of nature, almost all our foods must fit that description. Some plants we harvest early as we’re more interested in their leaves or stems than their ability to form roots. Others we grow for their fruits, needing them to go through almost all their life stages if they’re to provide us with the nourishment we’re after.

Aren’t we forever intervening to support or discourage different processes in nature so that we get what we want? Stepping in to stop plants from “wasting” their life force on outcomes we’re not interested in while encouraging the growth of whatever it is that meets our requirements.

Is it that, as humans, we effectively suppress the planet to suit our own needs? Letting things flourish when that suits us or stamping them out if we see no useful purpose. Similarly, with animal life it seems we’re often artificially involving ourselves in their life or breeding cycles to ensure a supply of whatever “product” we’ve deemed valuable or necessary for “our” existence.

Almost as if “to be human” is to evaluate the world around us in terms of the resources it offers, ways they match our needs, and ideas we have for getting more or less of what “we” want. The life forces of an entire planet enlisted for the purpose of our consumption. The living potential of each creature harnessed or suppressed to achieve our own ends.

It’s incredible to think of the position we hold within nature: the being capable of recognising its needs, understanding its environment, and finding ways of matching up the two through industrious activity. As if we’re holding the rest of nature back from fulfilling its potential in order that we might fulfil ours.

Don’t we generally seek the fulfilment of human potential? That we should be able to do all we’re capable of through the provision of opportunity, information, resources. We want ourselves to flourish, be all we can be, have nothing hold “us” back. All the while holding back almost everything around us – even other people – so that we might get ahead.

The place we occupy in the world, naturally or socially, seems so fascinating to contemplate (Notes Two). What is our philosophy of human life and its meaning? How much worth do we place on ourselves, others, and the roles we all play within these systems we’re each a fundamental part of?

If modern society’s the culmination of all that’s gone before, how aware are we of what’s made things as they currently stand? All the developments, breakthroughs, discussions that brought us here. All the energy, commitment, resolve, sacrifice by the countless beings whose forces were directed into furthering humanity’s path. What are we making of the opportunity for life this planet affords us?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Beauty and wonder in nature
Note 1: Things with life have to be maintained
Note 1: Humanity & creative instincts
Note 1: Living as a form of art
Note 2: Power and potential
Note 2: Where do ideas of evolution leave us?
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 2: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Do we know what stands before us?

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Information might be there, but can we find it?

Given how much “information” we’re now surrounded with in life, it seems that “finding our way within it” might be the real challenge we’re all facing (Notes One). This idea of somehow being able to uncover the fairest, truest representation of our complex realities; the best frame for understanding and wisely responding to this world and all those living within it.

Because much of what’s around us seems like it might be a version of “false” or “unhelpful” – not quite reflecting things honestly or encouraging us to live as humanly as we might hope. Conceivably, all these separate perceptions, experiences or observations of “reality” could be drawn together into any number of worldviews, conclusions and mindsets. But, where do they lead?

Maybe we’re simply living alongside countless fractured, atomised perspectives on life. A million separate thoughts we might pick up and arrange however we see fit. Whether or not those views are compatible, true, or wise foundations for crafting life around might be an important question. Don’t the ideas we have in mind matter? Becoming our justification for all we’re choosing to do in life.

What are we supposed to “make” of all we’re told? All the commercial messages; attempts to influence; ways of interpreting the events or people around us. If we’re living in this incessant shower of ideas hoping to take up place in our minds and inform our actions, what are they? All these assumptions, judgements, suggestions, conclusions, seeds of doubt or of hope. Little thoughts we let in and make our own. (Notes Two)

They must all add up, coming together into a potentially quite strange and contradictory picture of what life’s about. Of all the thoughts we could think, how are we choosing the ones we’re building our life around? How are we evaluating all that passes before our eyes or seeps into our minds through other means? How many find their way in without us really noticing?

Sometimes it’s like we’re surrounded by constantly refreshing mountains of information being churned out and insisted upon. This vast, often frightening, volume of ideas aggressively trying to carve out a space for themselves within our precious, limited mental landscape. As if “to be human” is now a case of filtering through it all to cast aside all that doesn’t serve the reality we have in mind.

Do we listen to all, none or some of it? Should we listen to the loudest, most skilful, or most worrying voices? Those who confirm or who challenge our ideas? What if “all this” is effectively drowning out voices we’d be wise to listen to? And, should we be adding our own voice to the mix or might we be better off holding back somewhat from this ever-flowing conversation that’s now engulfing us all? (Notes Three)

We might argue that “information’s there” for everyone to see, but if the truth’s nestled among a billion more questionable pieces of information how exactly are we supposed to be sure of having found it?

Notes and References:

Note 1: The sense of having a worldview
Note 1: Culture as information
Note 1: Information as a thing, endlessly growing
Note 2: What is the public conversation?
Note 2: Passing on what’s important
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 3: Joining the dots
Note 3: All in such a rush
Note 3: Whether we make a difference

Ways to share this:

The self within society

What is it to be a “self” within “society”? All these highly personal, intensely lived points where humanity becomes aware of itself within the social structures that envelop, define and inform its existence. The collective nature of our individual lives is fascinating – if overwhelming – to consider: each one of us connected in all the significant, impactful activities that make up our lives together.

Within it all, aren’t we generally seeking meaning, purpose, and the recognition of our worth within our community? This sense in which the mind seemingly always looks for the relationship between things, people, events, environments, and society itself (Notes One). As if “to be human” is to apply our capacity for thought and find meaning within the world around us.

As beings who think – perhaps, can’t help but think – isn’t it “natural” we would seek to make sense of all that’s surrounding us? This idea that being human “is” to stand within reality and reflect it in thought (Notes Two). Almost as if “that” is what we bring to the table: intelligence, analysis, forethought and, hopefully, concern. Each of us personally experiencing and drawing conclusions about life and how to live it.

We might look on society as comprised of units we call humans – these strange, predictable or surprising creatures – that arguably have to be constrained, educated or directed in ways that “work” for the systems sustaining their every need (Notes Three). As if communal life is a conceptual exercise of “knowing the human” then extrapolating to create ways of uniting us all through belief and action.

Given how this relationship between self and society goes both ways, the question of whether we’re held together or willingly hold ourselves together seems interesting. Do we need threats, constraints or incentives to act cohesively? This picture of humans as being guided mainly by self-interest; needing strong enough reasons to go against that. As opposed to us being guided by understanding, vision, or hope.

Modern society, in many ways, seems to take the first approach: surrounding us with carrots and sticks that shepherd us down the paths that’ve been deemed wisest overall. As if we’re “supposed” to judge based only on personal concerns and how much we’ll benefit from any given option. Alternatively, couldn’t we choose what seems right based on our thorough understanding of complex realities? (Notes Four)

Who’s the say what’s the best way of arranging individual humans into collective systems? There are presumably many ways of doing so, as evidenced by past and present societies. Within it all, the West perhaps stands out for the beautiful sentiment of attempting to establish social realities based around universal principles of human worth – those philosophical starting points underpinning where things now stand.

Ultimately, it seems society “must” establish itself around its understanding of individuals – their needs and inclinations – in order to create structures likely to be able to contain us all in meaningful, purposeful, sustainable ways. How well it’s all working out, though, seems to be giving cause for concern.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What it is to be human
Note 1: The struggle with being alive
Note 1: Complication of being human
Note 1: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: What are we thinking?
Note 3: Society as an imposition?
Note 3: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 4: Do we really need incentives?
Note 4: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 4: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 4: Whether we make a difference

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Visual language and spaces

In life, generally, aren’t we surrounded by constant visual landscapes? All that’s around presenting us with this ongoing play of colours, forms, structures, and the meanings assigned to them. That’s not any kind of revelation – it’s simply the reality of being alive and able to perceive the world around us – but it’s interesting to imagine how our landscapes differ from all that went before.

Looking back to, say, ancient Greece and Rome or an island existence, humans must’ve been surrounded by fairly simple, consistent landscapes. By modern standards, they were presumably quite calm and slow-moving compared with the pace of change and level of stimulation we’re now used to. Everything moving at its own speed, people interacting with it all in ways quite different from our own.

Almost as if “life” is a strange choreography of people moving in space and time to interact with the forms and functions of the society surrounding them – a dance of needs, capacities, tasks, environments, architecture, the trappings of culture, and human existence itself (Notes One). In which case, it’s perhaps not so different from today, only dialled up to a new pace with things taking on new forms.

But what about the meaning we get from it all? How meaningful is much of what surrounds us now? Of course, everything’s meaningful – it all means something, comes from somewhere, designed by someone, aiming to achieve certain ends. If we were to “read” it, everything within our environment would still “say” something about the world we’re living in and how we’re choosing to fill it as human beings.

Now, so much is commercial – our visual landscapes filled with advertising of various kinds. Then, the attempts being made to influence our ideas, decisions, beliefs, attitudes and assumptions. All this effort at filling our minds with new meanings or conclusions to fit one agenda or another. Our attention or acquiescence clearly being a valuable commodity, for whatever reason, within modern life.

What’s it like to be surrounded by visual cues attempting to change your mind, often on subconscious levels? It must be draining and make our minds confusing, unexpected places filled with ideas that aren’t really our own. As if our environment is now, in a way, an assault upon us as people make use of it for various ends. A space filled with subtext, agenda, and hidden messages (Notes Two).

Also, full of personal attempts at letting others know who they’re dealing with – all the ways we craft our own style to communicate who we are to others. All of these individual, cultural statements as we draw references together into whatever image we’re hoping to convey (Notes Three). In terms of homes, cars, belongings, clothing or general demeanour, isn’t our landscape now filled with the deliberate expression of meaning?

There’s no “point” to these musings, though. They’re simply pondering over how much life might’ve changed in this regard and what that might mean for us as the humans trying to live our lives within it all.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 1: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 1: Beauty and wonder in nature
Note 2: The difference humanity makes
Note 2: Attacks on our humanity
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 3: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 3: Definition, expression & interpretation
Note 3: Making things up as we go along

Ways to share this:

Will things change if we don’t make them?

Do things just continue on, unless we somehow decide to change them? Everything staying the same until the moment we do differently and alter the flow of events. As if we each have the agency to create change or keep things as they are. Everyone deciding which things they’ll carry forward, which they’ll change, and why.

One path must then be that of passivity, apathy or trust in any wisdom you’ve received: continuing on with whatever you’ve been told in the hope those before us knew what was best. Accepting “the way things are” or “how things are done” as traditions we mustn’t break. Dutifully repeating words and actions in the faith that they’re the right way to go.

Alternatively, there’s the slightly more active stance of questioning, trying to understand, seeking better solutions, “improving” how things are done, and thereby becoming responsible for whatever your intervention sets in motion (Notes One). If we feel things aren’t quite working and mightn’t be leading in the best directions, don’t we have to look with fresh eyes and make our own judgements?

Of course, then there’s always the risk of error, criticism and blame. Doing nothing but what we were told, there’s always the option of saying it wasn’t our fault. But, is that enough? If we exist in the flow of time as intelligent creatures capable of understanding the world and our roles within it, is it enough that we defer to others instead of using our own minds?

It’s perhaps not easy to say. Maybe the things the past and those within it set in motion were wise and we’d be right to follow in their footsteps. How are we to judge the rightness of any course of action? Especially in this fast-moving, interconnected modern world. How can we see how all our choices come together? To judge, we presumably need to understand realities and the significance of our place within them (Notes Two).

We might keep doing the same things, trusting it’ll lead to good outcomes – and maybe it will. But sometimes circumstances change, actions take on new meaning, and doing nothing different might mean something new: going with the flow of an altered environment (Notes Three). Don’t circumstances always change? Within our lives or the world around us, habitual choices can easily become the wrong thing.

What, then, should our involvement be? Are we to be agents of change or its passengers? We might want to be handed “the right answer” – some catch-all solution that’ll work in every situation (Notes Four) – but are there truly such prescriptions to be found? What if nothing’s going to be solved “once and for all” but everything of value needs the constant reinforcement of us reimagining what it means for any given scenario?

Maybe “life” is more a picture of ongoing engagement? The need to always read and respond wisely if we’re to ensure any changes we’re going along with or serving to create are really what we mean to be doing.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Passivity, or responsibility
Note 1: Too much responsibility?
Note 2: The need for discernment
Note 2: Right to question and decide
Note 2: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 2: Questions around choice
Note 3: One thing leads to another
Note 3: Can we reinvigorate how we’re living?
Note 3: Making adjustments
Note 4: What if solutions aren’t solutions?
Note 4: Doing the right thing, we erase consequences
Note 4: Whether we make a difference

Ways to share this:

Shaping the buildings that shape us

How many of the problems we encounter in life are of our own making? The outworking of possibly flawed ideas, observations or conclusions from the past that, over the years, developed into something quite different from their original intention (Notes One). Living within systems created by humans, increasingly detached from nature and its wisdom, it’s interesting to imagine where that might lead.

Isn’t it the case that environments tend to shape us? All the activities, expectations and ideas around us effectively informing our choices: the kinds of things we might accept or get drawn into. As if we each read the world, from our perspective, and plot our course within it. Now, though, it’s seeming such an abstract, distant, remote, confusing kind of reality – something quite difficult to read or fully understand (Notes Two).

It must be an incredible responsibility to shape the realities others will be walking into, existing within, and living through. That we would be creating the environment for others to learn from and construct their lives around: drawing on the knowledge that’s presented; building on the foundations as they’re offered; discussing things using the terms that’ve been set.

Like Winston Churchill’s comment, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us”, sometimes it really seems we’re living within this strange handing-down of ideas, forms and structures. As if those before us “always” determine what they’ll tell us and the relative importance they’ll assign each element of the story – generation upon generation passing on some things and letting others fall away (Notes Three).

If society’s like a structure we walk into, what kinds of values, priorities and activities are being offered? Is this building more of a prison or a bustling, creative university? If “this” is the place we live, get our ideas about life, and pick up the threads as they’re handed to us, it’s fascinating to imagine what that conversation actually “is” and what we’re likely to make of it.

Doesn’t being in any kind of building effectively shape our feelings, perspectives and interactions? What we’ll experience in any particular room; how we pass between them, and all we see on the way; the encounters we have with others through the ebb and flow of the building’s functions. As if each part were a living, breathing structure we fill with our purpose and our presence in this ongoing dance of “life” and human activity.

Much as this relates to architecture, society or personal psychology, don’t we generally experience life through our place within it, perception of it, and the thoughts that’s bringing to mind? As if, passing through life, we gather up meaning to grasp where we stand and what our options might be. Each living within the structure they’ve made of their minds, relationships, and understanding of the world.

Art, architecture or philosophy can sometimes seem like distant, abstract comments on “reality” (Notes Four); in other ways, they seem capable of offering an interesting sense of what it might mean to be human.

Notes and References:

Note 1: How much do intentions matter?
Note 1: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 1: Values, and what’s in evidence
Note 2: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 2: Treating people like sims?
Note 2: Reading into social realities?
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 3: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 3: Olds meets new, sharing insight
Note 4: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 4: Art as a way to subvert or inspire
Note 4: Living as a form of art

Ways to share this:

What is the public conversation?

If we conceive of life as being accompanied by all of our thoughts and conversations around it, where does this collective act of communication happen? It seems there must be a place we get our ideas from, test them out, or hear what others have to say about life, all that’s happening within it, and what it might mean. Whether that’s the role of culture or “the media” more specifically, it’s interesting to imagine the power it has.

Isn’t it an important conversation? This space where we listen to how others are speaking of things, absorb the terms being used, and establish our own personal sense of meaning, engagement or judgement with regard to the world we’re all living in (Notes One). Hopefully it’s full of reasonable, balanced information and responsible statements – something reliable on which we can base our views and decide how we’ll respond.

That said, isn’t the modern conversation generally peppered through with commercial agendas, distractions vying for our attention, and polarised voices of almost complete disagreement and mutual anger? Quite a volatile place, socially and emotionally, where we’re more likely to feel criticised than heard. Potentially, a very stressful drain on our energy, patience, and interest in hearing one another out.

Within that, how can we be sure or calm about anything? It seems we’re all seeing things so differently, at times; making this a conversation filled with disbelief, indignation, and concern over where things are heading. How are we to capture complex realities, from various angles, in simple terms? If we truly have limited capacity to listen or care, how are we to navigate this and avoid being overwhelmed? (Notes Two)

And, if we’re taking these ideas out into our lives to act upon them, who gets to draw the conclusions or determine the action points? Are we just left to blend “all this” in with what we already had and see what comes of it? Placing all these jumbled facts or half-truths somewhere on our mental shelves for reference later. All of these images, suggestions, inferences waiting for us to somehow establish meaning between them.

It seems a strange sort of communication, at times: words, events, thoughts, all shooting across the void in this conversation that never quite “lands”. We’re all part of it – drawing, as it does, on the realities of our lives – and, arguably, what we take from it becomes the outworking of this exchange of ideas, but seeing where we stand and how it all fits together seems far from easy most of the time.

In many ways, it’s fascinating that we’ve opened the floodgates and allowed all kinds of voices, perspectives and experiences to speak into this one conversation we’re now able to have. The idea of being able to assimilate it all into a meaningful, balanced, purposeful sense of “what life is” isn’t seeming so easy to achieve, though. At times, it seems more likely we’ll be overwhelmed by the task, or the conflict that’s coming along with it.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 1: On whose terms?
Note 1: Passing on what’s important
Note 1: Culture as information
Note 1: Joining the dots
Note 2: Too much responsibility?
Note 2: Ways thought adds spin to life
Note 2: Overwhelm and resignation
Note 2: Can others join you?
Note 2: Going towards the unknown

Ways to share this:

Can “how we relate” really change?

In life, can “how we relate” really change? Can the idea of human communication, relationship, and all the various ties between us actually be altered by new ways of being? Drawing us, through how we’re living, into new ideas of what human life’s worth and the potential value of getting to know one another and experiencing all the different ways to be human.

Relationship “must” be this fundamental human concept? This notion of how we stand next to one another, all the ways we’re alike or different, and how each person’s existence arguably serves to enrich our own. Isn’t it the foundation of community? All these ideas of mutual respect, awareness, interest, recognition, acceptance. All these points where our lives touch and meaning is established between us. (Notes One)

The ties between people – economically, socially, culturally, personally – seem so essential to understanding what life “is” and why it should matter: all the human faces, lives and stories that go into making the world what it is. While it might be quite a difficult aspect of life, it also seems quite a beautiful one in the sense that we “could” all be woven together into a picture of harmonious, appreciative coexistence (Notes Two).

Of course, that’s not actually what’s happening. More often than not, we now seem increasingly disinterested in and disconnected from the lives of others, living within these bubbles of our own ideas, experiences and beliefs about life. Modern life, for any number of reasons, seeming to connect us together and push us apart in fairly equal measure as we struggle with all the opportunities technology’s offering.

Having spun its tendrils throughout every area of our lives, it’s perhaps “natural” for it to be changing how we see things, relate, and the ideas we have in mind about life’s meaning. As the lens through which we interact with the world, it’s also seeming to reinforce – potentially, trap us within – our own perspectives, experiences, and thought patterns. (Notes Three)

Sometimes it just seems we might end up caught in our own ideas of life: seeing everything through this pre-conditioned lens that’s confirming whatever we already believe to be true. As if we’re so amplified by it all that the notion of others, their ideas and experiences, becomes drowned out or incompatible with our own, strengthened conclusions. All potentially quite isolated, overwhelmed, and intolerant of one another.

It’s fascinating to imagine how much technology might change us – how we talk, how we listen, how much we care. If “to be human” is to connect ourselves in relationship with one another through words, what does technology make of that? Given all modern life’s presenting us with, how much can we still “see” who others truly are beyond our limited, amplified notions of them?

Beneath it all, the richness of human life and experience seems so important – that, as human beings, we would retain interest in and concern for other people. What would it mean, then, if we started to lose that capacity?

Notes and References:

Note 1: What does community mean?
Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 1: Counselling, listening & social identity
Note 1: True relationship within society?
Note 2: Invisible ties
Note 2: Going towards the unknown
Note 2: The power of understanding
Note 2: Finding flaws
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: Does being alone amplify things?
Note 3: Power and potential
Note 3: Joining the dots

Ways to share this: