I have a theory and I am going to share it with you. I theorize that we are recently being depressed by the speed of light. Of course, it is logical to assume that the speed of light has remained constant in the universe for some time. So it isn’t a change in the speed of light that is causing the depression. I think we might be depressed because we have learned to use the speed of light to move information globally.
Just a few hundred years ago, news that occurred in Europe would take months to arrive in the United States. By the time we heard the news the impact on us was muted by the time that had passed — months. Now you can’t escape the bad news, it comes across social media equally fast. Often it is compassion evoking and often fear provoking.
Information/news systems now alert us to many events happening globally. These news events are strongly skewed toward “bad” things just as local news is about every big enough bad thing that happened that day. And, it is unimportant that we assign responsibility for this bias to the demands of viewers or the propagandists of an era. What is important is the ratio of reality presented in information/news systems.
Continuing with my theorizing, if on average, each person is kind to another person three times a day, then we have 21 billion acts of kindness each day.These acts come from humans, humans that possess freewill, choice.
If our information/news systems represented this ratio of reality, you and I would have a difficult time finding a violent fear inducing show on television. Most everyday, most everybody, does their best to cooperate, get along, be helpful and perhaps someday our institutions, nation, and world will reflect the values of the regular people doing acts of kindness to others.
I received five acts of kindness from others today and that made me think about the speed of light and the ratio of reality in our information/news systems. Most important is the choice to give acts of kindness, as that heals our body and the soul.
There was a woman in France alive and well into her hundred and twenties. Of course, everyone would like to know how to stay well and enjoy life like she was doing. She wasn’t a saint and had a shot of something every night and she had smoked for a hundred of those years. What she had was a ideal. An ideal of staying calm if there was nothing she could do to change something happening in the world. Now isn’t that something?
That very gull you have pictured above I saw from the park next to Hearthfire. I didn’t know it was a gull because it was diving from heights similar to a pelican. But when I looked it up, there it was, a Black Headed Gull.
Shortly after I was parked by the Farmers’ Market transfixed by something on NPR.
Funny how people and birds crisscross our lives.
Hi Jane,
Are you the person with whom I conversed at the Farmers Market about the NPR Story?
Rick