Aspects of Being: Column 91

Ah, the “Sound Byte” - that infernal noise - commonly referred to as The News… It’s been said that, all considered, we’re now living centuries within a single decade! “News” is now a virtually constant backdrop in our lives, and many can’t seem to get enough of it. We’ve embraced the notion, and have in fact decreed that we’re ‘entitled’(!) to be informed of all that happens around us (after all, inquiring minds want to know). Yet what is the ultimate benefit… Are we indeed wiser? The scope of most of it, day in and day out - every day - incites visceral reactions of instant outrage, hatred, and indignation, if not despair. The barrage of “one-liners” packs all the punch of tag-team prizefighters, in fact pummelling us with what we insist is ‘Our Right’.

Is it that we truly don’t wish to miss anything in this Information Age… Or have we simply become a culture of righteous, high-tech, “Armchair Warriors”? For the Human Gallery is vast, and all the experiences therein infinitely complex – and ever has it been thus. In our present age (also as ever) we like to think The News brings us “facts”, and that we’re sufficiently informed and aware. But somehow, in the same way that Gossip in its telling confers the perceived power of Judgement, so do we often get but incendiary “snapshots” of the events that occur in our world.
Is it Blessing, or Curse, or a mere “occupational hazard” of Humanity? Or is it simply part of our Evolution…Does ‘being informed’ bring us closer to our global neighbours, near and far – does it provoke participation, motivate positive change, cultivate compassion… a will to know more? Or does the inundation serve to alienate us even further from each other. I guess it truly depends on how one ‘listens’, and what we listen for – the only indisputable fact remains, as ever, that we will never know the whole story…

I like to think we’re learning to listen better than we once did… that is, I hope.

“Here we’re living
in the golden age ~
The world has never
set a brighter stage ~
While many ragged souls are bleeding;
Some have just begun to fight.
Can’t change an angry world
overnight.”

~ Gowan (from the album “Great Dirty World” – 1987 CBS Records Canada)

© 2003