Saturday, July 23, 2016

Living by fiction

NEWS it has been said, is the original idea of the gathering of information from areas North East West and South. It is stories brought by runner, horseback, falcon, smoke signal, beacons, radio, telephone, television, internet.
Good News seems to be passe' and always gets trumped by the ugly bad News. I don't know what it is that causes humanity to cling to the bad News forgoing the good but every succesful (if I can use the definition) News agency knows this.
A quick look at any American feed reveals a macabre narrative of all the wrongs from everywhere on Earth...converging into perpetual questions: Can it happen here? Are we safe?
Canadian feeds are quickly catching up with the trend too.
CBC for example, is quick to give the headline with little deep information and no follow-up.
So I ask the question: Why our "train wreck" mentality?
What is it that causes us to create 45 minute traffic jams as we pass an accident but blast past waterfalls, vista points and wild green spaces with nary a care?
Are we really in that much need of misery that we'll forfeit joy?
Can we only relate to agony and heartbreak because we too quickly have forgotten all of the good, timely blessings life tossed our way?
Donald Trump's latest speech was full of hate, anger, fear and "vitriol" ( currently my favourite word which is new to me) to which legions of his followers cheered and jumped about. He chooses a frightening way to ralley the masses, but it works!
Trump KNOWS that too many people have a need to cling to a victim mentality* forgoing any other characteristic of self identy. Many of us cling to Global bad news and agony in our lives, make it our narrative and stupidly set it up as a sextant by which to travel. I shake my head.
I work around a lot of hurting people that are gripped in addiction, mental health issues, poverty and disease and many of these people STILL NOTICE JOY!
I look at a lot of local News. I look at foreign web sites to keep myself "in the know" so as to relate to my fellow human in their suffering and JOY!
This exercise has often helped me to be available to help others when called upon as if I know what they're going through.
In saying that, I must refresh myself outdoors away from all of that bad news.
So heres the application:
Cling to all that is good, learn from the not-so-good and go out of your often way to help someone else in word and deed.
Peace

Victim mentality is an acquired (learned) personality trait in which a person tends to regard him or herself as a victim of the negative actions of others, and to behave like it were the case—even in the absence of clear evidence. It depends on habitual thought processes and attribution.
-Wiki