If you feel like your life is charmed—even slightly boring—or on the contrary are completely suffocated by struggles to make ends meet, raise children, care for the elderly, or are battling a disease and need a diversion, all you need to do is turn on the TV.
And no, I don’t mean the cartoon channel.
Your world will spin and the fear and agony will take over…or you will just become numb. If you feel you must express an opinion on the topics at hand then, of course, like any decent, respectable, holier than God person, you take your ‘point of view,’ grief, or gripes to one of the dozens of social media outlets. And that’s how you get a sense of being alive, that YOUR LIFE “matters too,” right? That’s the trap. Anger feeds anger, controversy brings more controversy and everything you say or do, will be held against you. And on the flip side, everything you don’t say or don’t do will be held against you too.
As a somewhat “public person on social media, I’ve been told many times I need to pay closer attention to how I treat my audience, on how I shouldn’t starve them of my selfies or daily platitudes. I’m definitely not going to be a hypocrite here—thanks to Facebook I’ve sold my books and developed an international fan base. Thanks to Facebook I’ve gotten tons of writing ideas, laughed a lot, became utterly puzzled at moments, enjoyed a wide range of emotions and have read a lot of news. YET, I’ve always been aware of one major fact: “Being popular on Facebook is like sitting at the cool table in the cafeteria of a mental hospital.”
With that being said, I don’t take myself seriously, I don’t take my FB friends seriously and I definitely don’t allow religious, racist, mean-spirited, gossipy, angry crap on my wall.
“I also try to set an example at ”my table,” by NOT commenting on the latest terrorist attack, how one country’s political entanglements affect the rest of the world, what religion should be practiced (or shouldn’t be at all), or if whether being white, yellow, green, human, U.F.O, the moon or whatever matters or not. I refuse to fuel fear or pay attention to actions and beliefs that contradict mine.
And it doesn’t mean I don’t care. It doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t bleed. It doesn’t mean my overly photo shopped selfies are more important than the latest international crisis. It only means that if I can do something about it, I will do it through private actions. If there’s nothing I can do about it, I choose to remain silent, or change the subject because we, the world, we societies and we individuals have enough reasons to be frustrated, sad, annoyed, and disappointed as it is.
Why not change the world’s problems with a smile? Even if it’s a fake one, a forced glimpse of peace and serenity in a wrinkled world in turmoil.
“ Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” (John Donne)
