Do you remember the sheer joy of jumping in a nice puddle of muddy water when you were little? I do, with relish of thought and warmth. Of course, I didn’t stay too warm, covered with muddy water soaking through my clothes, but mom was there with her momentary look of disappointment and her longer love.
There was the time, I overheard her talking with my dad about it. She started out complaining about the amount of laundry I generated but eventually ended up laughing with him. She chuckled, “You should’ve seen his face, his ears and hair were full of mud.”
My dad’s reply, “Well, I guess we’d better start that potato crop, cause he’s a boy and that’s his thing.”
Most children love playing in the dirt and we enjoy laughing over how outrageous it can get, while they remain young. It seems to be a natural tendency the majority of us have.
Unfortunately, as we grow, these things grow in variety, proportion and severity, so an obvious perspective change is needed. This is truth; we have our adult versions. Just for example, tipping a little or substance abuse. It seems it’s simply an issue of quantity, but it definitely affects quality of life. Going down the road of devaluation can lead from pornography to overtly cheating on a spouse. Many would argue, this is an issue of ‘level of participation’. Starting with the internet and older mediums of exposure some would argue these are a series of physical steps removed, and so no real harm is done. Citing the second as betrayal, with its direct results of clear physical interaction, in that real contact is made, so physical exchange is had, including STDs and possible reproduction implications. Wow, rationalization and denial, how it exposes our inner selves.
The idea of fidelity and integrity seems to be lost on those who are trapped in these ways of thinking, as they try to distance themselves from acknowledging the pain of real loss. Outcome mechanisms are triggered, like: “Well, monogamy is not natural,”; “It’s only fantasy, so it’s got nothing to do with my relationship,” and further down the same path; “It’s only physical, it doesn’t mean anything, I still love you.”
Are we actually buying the garbage over-indulgent media is putting out? Shear repetition of something is not an evidence of truth; I mean, how long were they saying the world was flat? Man, can we lie to ourselves; and it eventually affects our sense of reality and worldview.
The fact there is cause and effect seems to have been drowned in our education system today, being replaced by a kind of pandering to ‘short-term memory’. It leaves the young and later these adults with the idea of entitlement and unrealistic levels of appetite, without an awareness of a path and its consequences. It is literally “being led down the garden path to slaughter”. This never enables a person to build a healthy construct on which to live and find security.
Much of our society has been raised on technology which caters to this neurological development of our brains in new unfortunate ways. Many virtual games, products and toys are designed to appeal to short-term, spoon-fed, instant gratification and reinforcement, creating a kind of dependency.
Except for certain products directed at brain development, much of it deliberately avoids addressing it and so weakens the part of the brain responsible for deeper decision making and higher reasoning. Leaving it untrained as to how to enter in, face, and resolve issues and maintain conviction. Instead, these products attempt to stimulate only the pleasure centre and short-term memory.
Even social media panders to this same immediate gratification, and in addition, tends to leave one without the capacity for genuine personal judgment. This gives rise to cyberbullying and much impatience out there around our lives having to be curtailed a little during Covid; you know, masks, hand sanitizing and social distancing.
Many studies have been made acknowledging the remapping of the human brain, by service-oriented tech. For example, computers, television, and the integrated capabilities of our phones today.
Don’t get me wrong, if a person uses tech wisely, meaning at a level which does not replace one’s own calculative and cognitive abilities, then it can be very helpful. However, if it becomes a go-to for everything, then a person is giving the choice factor over to technology and retarding the growth of one’s development and command of life. They don’t call it the idiot box for nothing.
I’m not putting tech itself down, but the purveyors of mass entertainment media products know what they are exposing us to. It appears as a systematic, ushering of us into a state of addiction, so we fail to use the higher reasoning aspects of our brains.
Interestingly, and I believe not coincidentally, this is the pattern of thinking enabling the industry of human trafficking, and its offshoots of magazine, video, and internet pornography to thrive on us. Cause and effect makes those rich, who nibble away at our emotional and relational bottom line. Let’s keep our free will intact and defend against all slow slides into the decisions being made for us, as polished as they may seem, which is predicated on the devaluing of human life, masquerading as freedom but creating dependency. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]