What would happen if we all played with yo-yos, all at the
same time. For those out in the sticks, like me, it might not be that big of a
deal. So what if we all played with yo-yos at the same time? There’s generally enough
room for us all to move over and around so that there’s enough room for the
practice, and if we practice a little consideration and keep an eye on others
practices, we each might learn a bit from it all to improve our play, coordination
and pick up a few new tricks…
Oh, but then what would happen in the urban areas? How would
everyone in the most crowded areas of Kinshasa, Jakarta, New York, or Mexico
City rock the yos? How could they, in the midst of so many others trying to go
about their own business and yo-yo at the same time, do anything besides get
all tangled up and ruin their strings? It gets much more difficult as people
tire of flinging their yos down, only to struggle in order to get them to
ascend, over and over again. A time progresses, people who still have their yo-yos
and strings intact begin to fling and throw more wildly, hitting others in the
face, the eye, and wherever, and still more yos get tangled as some get enraged
with others for their cavalier attitudes and flippant, self-centered tricks.
The sociology is different depending on the situation and
activity, and sometimes the intensity with which we might pursue it. My example
isn’t perfect, but the principle is simple: we are all here doing the same
thing at the same time. The only thing that changes is the narrative behind our
actions, and therefore, the methods used and intensity used.
Everyone depends on narrative to create and describe
meaning. Our lives are imbued by narrative from the beginning- babies observe
to patch together their own story of family and circumstance until language
facilitates a cohesion of the whole into a sort of self-description. I am ‘me’
and I belong to this family/tribe who lives here and does ‘this’ every day. The
story changes according to all kinds of variables, tragedies and circumstances,
but that’s the basis for who we become as individuals. Narrative.
There are innumerable ways to live a life and the same
number of philosophies underlying those ways. But when one breaks it all down,
the infinite narrows down to only a few: living for one’s self or living for
others, and the various combinations of those two ways. This is where things
can go crazysauce (in varying amounts, of course) awful quickly if circumstances
aren’t monitored for appropriateness, stability, and individual fulfillment at
some level, even if it is only done by the informed individual themselves.
But why is that? Lord knows if we don’t have some sort of
oversight as we grow up, all hell can break loose right quickly in many ways.
That doesn’t change as we become adults. While the locus of control and
monitoring largely changes from external to internal as we mature (hopefully!),
we still need help in creating good value for ourselves, as well as those we
find ourselves in positions of responsibility for, those around us, and finally
and in many ways most importantly, for those who will follow us in the near and
far future, both directly as decedents and all others. That’s where we are
really fracking up, these days…
Our society is currently based on a limited view of the
universe. Me. As social media, old media, new money and old money have
coalesced into new viewpoints of fame, fortune, and usability, religion and
politics have done much the same. The self is the most important net marketing
point, so the ‘me’ is the new sacred center. Live your dreams, find your bliss,
break the glass ceiling, make more money and get your due! Environmental
concerns float around like space debris and short-lived comets, but the self
remains the center of the universe at the expense of family, community, state,
culture, spirituality, and well, pretty much everything else, too. Nothing can
compare to the happiness of the toned, spritzed, polished, and well-lit and
photographed self in our little media-centric world, appetite-driven,
product-delivered world.
But what at what dire price? Unless one is willing to market
and shove one’s self craftily down the collective throat, one will be forgotten
and passed over for the flashy extroverted self-promoters, and with that
pass-over, the world’s perception and indeed the image and build of the
institution, place, or ideology represented by the self promoter will come to
closely resemble the self-promoter or media spokesperson most craftily presented.
Not always a bad thing, but when that final product is shortsightedly created
to build up an individual or group with short sighted goals of pleasure or
individual security in place of long-range, multi-generationally maintained
progress, the result is obvious in such light.
This is not the light cast or presented very often- it
creates work, demands some sacrifice of immediate gratification, and puts off ‘progress’
until it makes sense in a scale much longer than what most YouTubers and Facebookers
can stomach while desperately manufacturing consent for their build and buzz.
Long-range and non-self centric actions are quiet and lack the kind of glitz
favored by DonTrump and Beyoncé, by Lady Gaga or any other shiny blinger
looking to dream their dreams and reflect a narcissistic societies’ collective
booty-dance right back in their open-mouth faces. Long range acters are not
academy award actors, they seldom are remembered by any besides their loving
families whose lives were enabled by their less selfish dreams and hopes and
visions…
