Mediagraphy

“Make the most of your time – for the days are evil”

Lately, there’s been a divisive topic filling the media, and it seems to command the attention of a lot of people in the world – especially those with relatives in the Middle East. Yesterday, there was another divisive topic filling the media, and it seemed to command the attention of a lot of people in the world – especially those with relatives in the Middle East. Next year, there will be a divisive topic filling the media, and it will seem to command the attention of a lot of people in the world – especially those with relatives in the Middle East. Tomorrow, there will be another divisive topic filling the media, and it will seem to command the attention of a lot of people in the world – especially those with relatives in the Middle East.

Let’s pause for a commercial break.

Why would I repeat roughly the same thing, over and over? Well, because that’s how our world and media works, and it’s wasting your time, exhausting you of your energy, and it isn’t doing a damn thing to make your life any better or valuable than the game the rangers just played – or the game they played, 23 games ago.

Does anybody remember the 23rd game-ago they played? Can you recall it by detail?

I highly doubt it.

If you’re currently glued to your television and concerned about global events happening in other parts of the world, I think that you’re wasting as much of your time as somebody who’s addicted to pornography.

Whoa, what?

That’s a pretty bold claim, and I stand by it.

Every single day, week and year, there’s a story on television that wants nothing more than to take away your time, energy, and resources. And right now, it’s happening in a way that I’ve never seen happen before.

Before a reader thinks that I’m somehow callous to the loss of human life, including women and children – I’d ask that same reader, do you care about the lives of women and children – or only some of these victims that match your selective criteria for giving-a-sh*t?

Let’s go back to the 90’s, and recall a school in Colorado that went by the name of Columbine. 15 students were brutally murdered at the hands of their classmates, and the entire country remained glued to their televisions for weeks on end.

If concern for children was the reason people watched their TVs, then I think it’s safe to say that the American masses were bamboozled and swindled by the media giants – again, a bold statement.

This isn’t to say that I don’t care about the loss of their lives – because situations like this grieve me. It’s simply to say that 1 in 3 children in America go hungry, and that a difference could have been made in this number if people devoted their energy toward helping these kids instead of staring at their television. Countless others are murdered every year, and yet nobody seems to notice – or care, because they have instead directed their attention toward the faces on the television screen.

Watching TV doesn’t mean that you care for people.

Taking action to help people means that you care for people.

Read that again.

Taking action doesn’t mean engaging in a debate, because I have yet to see a single debate between even the most intellectual that somehow betters the lives of both parties. Instead, it simply gives both sides an opportunity to vent their own opinions and give an outlet to their emotional energy.

It’s just as ludicrous to think that being glued to a TV, or reading countless news articles is somehow bettering you, any more than somebody watching pornography is going to better their relationship or show their partner that they care. 

I’ll probably upset some people that read this. In full transparency, I don’t care, any more than those people care about children dying.

“What?! I DO CARE ABOUT CHILDREN DYING”

And watching TV or reading the news is somehow more effective in helping the lives of children than going out and feeding the ones in your community, or giving that same time, attention and emotional energy to your own family?

Do you know anything about the genocides happening right now in China, or Syria? Probably not. Is it safe for me to say that only showing care and concern for some children in the world means that you’re displaying selective care, whilst ignoring others? I do.

Over 1 million Muslims in Uyghur China have been subjected to imprisonment, torture or have been killed. This is happening as I write this blog. Experts estimate that, since 2017, some sixteen thousand mosques have been razed or damaged,  and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools for ‘re-education’.

Do you care?

While the world was glued to their TV for over a week, wondering if a few people were going to make it out of a submarine – over 700 were actively missing on another boat; refugees hoping for a better life.

Did anybody care? No. They were too busy watching and wondering if the people who paid $250,000 to see the Titanic in a hack-job submarine would make it. Millions of dollars were spent on military search parties – in which every member of the search party knew from the start that the sub was already gone.

It was all a show.

What if those same resources had been devoted to the refugees? Could there have been a different outcome than 700+ dying at sea?

That’s a really, really good question – and we will never know the answer.

I’m tired of talking politics. I’m tired of hearing people debate one side or another on topics that have absolutely no impact on their own lives, all the while preventing these media-addicts from making actual change in the world and in the lives around them.

What’s better, to sit in front of the television and be informed or to walk outside of your front door and offer food, clothing and resources to the people in your own neighborhood who are in need, or in danger?

What’s better, to faithfully love and serve your partner, or to sit in front of a computer and get off to hardcore pornography?

People have become addicted to the media in similar ways that they become addicted to substances, pornography or other destructive habits. And frankly, I don’t see much of a difference between the two.

We live in a world now where people think that protesting is the solution. However, it isn’t, nor does it work. All of the protests in the world will not stop the politicians that have invested their stock portfolios in companies that produce weaponry – and they sit contentedly in their offices knowing that the people who might unseat them are now sitting instead on their couch, glued to the television screen, scrolling through endless news articles, instead of actually running for office and occupying the voting power that their chair holds.

If you care about human life – then go do something that makes a difference in the life of a human being. One human being. Then help another.

Make a difference in the lives of the people around you, and choose to give them your time, ears, love, food and resources.

Encourage somebody rather than debate them.

How different would our world look if people took this approach?

In the time it took you to read this blog, over 250 people have died from hunger.