I say this because I am experiencing the paradox of having so much to write about that I can think of nothing to write. No, even that's not quite right, it's not that I can't think of anything to write it's that I can't focus on anything to write about it because as soon as I do I think of 3 more things I should write about. Modern lack of civility, AI and the assault on art, the stupidity of the current economic situation, the state of the education system, the failures and pitfalls of social media, and the arrogance of ignorance ... just to name a few bouncing around my head.
Net result is that I'm likely not going to talk about any of those ..... or maybe I'll write about all of them. We'll just have to wait and see. Sometimes I look around, I listen to the news and read things that make me wonder if I'm the only one that sees some of this stuff. I mean I feel like I can't possibly be ... well, let's be fair, I know I'm not because I know my wife sees at least some of it too because we talk about things such as this fairly regularly. But outside of that? Well let me tell you a story.....
Last year I was working late evenings catching drives for various jobs and we had a 'one off upload' coming in that night. That is a client coming in that just needs to use our fast internet connection to upload their media to another location ... usually LA or New York. Well turned out they were shooting marketing material for a show we were working on (we didn't know what they were shooting when we booked the job, and they didn't know we were working dailies on the show, just had heard that we had good internet connection and reasonable rates.) ... none of that's important by the way, just a cool coincidence.
Well when he came by to drop the material for the upload since there was nothing going on in the office I offered that he have a seat, it was only a 30 minute upload based on the data anyway. I started the upload and we sat down at the breakroom table and talked. There was something political in the news ... I don't remember what now ... and normally I wouldn't normally discuss politics with a client, but he brought it up and while I doubt we'd have agreed on everything, we did on this point at least in general neither of us spoke too specifically. He was about my age ... maybe 5 years or so older if I had to guess (and I would have to as I didn't ask) ... and one thing we definitely agreed on is that we, as a society in general, have largely lost the ability to disagree.
I've talked about this a bit before I think, or maybe I haven't here ... I don't remember ... but starting I'd say with the news media in the late 90's or so and then into the rise of 'social media' nearly everyone and every topic largely became black and white, but reality and life rarely truly work that way. Discussion, debate, discourse is how we, as a society, learn about the complexities of issues by getting information from a differing point of view. But too often now, anyone that disagrees with someone becomes 'the enemy' (and we both noted that this behavior is from both sides in pretty much any discussion ... it isn't a left/right or a liberal/conservative or even a black/white issue .... it's a society issue.
A lot of people in today's society have decided that their view is the one true view, that what they see is THE answer and that everyone else is wrong. But that's not always the case, and with almost every complex social issue it is certainly NOT the case. Everyone has different experiences, different points of view, maybe different understandings of a situation. A friend of mine showed me an image many years ago, and I've used it many times in talking about this issue, but I recently found one that took it even a step further:
What you know and see may be true, but it doesn't mean that it is the whole truth, it doesn't mean that what someone else sees and describes from their point of view is wrong or a lie. This tendency to attack and belittle anyone with a different point of view only leads to not actually understanding the TRUTH of the matter. We are stronger and better as a society if we can take a step back and look at something from a different perspective, listen to someone that might have different life experience and take a moment to understand their view of things, doing that might give us a better picture of the truth, a better understanding of the issue and allow us to work toward better solutions, better ways of treating others around us that maybe we don't understand at first because we don't share their point of view, their experience, or their upbringing.
Don't get me wrong. Some things are simply wrong. Judging or treating someone differently because of their race, religion, sex, or anything like that is wrong, full stop ... do not pass go, do not collect $200. Any group that preaches, teaches, or condones hatred toward another group, who wish harm on another group ... is wrong. Some will say 'then punching Nazis is wrong too' ... in a way, that is correct, however, Nazis have traditionally been the aggressors and defending yourself or others is not wrong. Most reasonable people understand that these things are bad, so if you have a group of people going out of their way to identify themselves with such a group of people openly ... yeah ... Captain America had the right idea....
