Tuesday, October 11, 2011

A semi rhetorical question

I posted today on my Facebook and G+ accounts what was meant to be a rhetorical question: We have all gotten very good at quoting and re-quoting other people. When are we going to start saying something ourselves?

It has me thinking though, we really do not say much anymore while at the same time being consumed by endless chatter. The things we say through social media is almost a constant flow of information, but so little of it is original thought. Certainly some very profound things are put forth, but they are other mens ideas and words simply being parroted back. Have we reached a point where we are unable to come up with our own profound statements? It is as though we as a society turned into Hollywood; simply remaking the same old classics over and over again, rarely meeting up to the genius of the original.

All of the Twitter feeds, all of the Facebook and G+ statuses, all of the social media outlets are turning into a sort of digital thought white noise. It never stops but there is no content there. What passes for intelligent thought is drowned out by a flood of LOL Cat pictures, inane youtube videos, spotify updates, games requests, and location check ins. The mundaneness of our lives have been brought forward and showcased through our status updates to the point that we are little more than meme's and the things that happened at the grocery store.

It seems that we are squandering the potential of communication and watering down the experience of life. We are no longer expressing ourselves and sharing our lives because we are repeating what other people say and having a vicarious life through internet media.

I have things to say.
I have words, that turn into thoughts, that turn into extraordinary things.
I have a life. I do not want to be confined to a character count. I do not want to be reduced to a re-post of a famous quote. I want to use the tools we have to expand my thoughts and my ideas.

When is the last time you truly said something?

2 comments:

  1. I'm currently working on a... very, very long post about biscuits. Not just because biscuits are this very awesome and wonderful thing, in and of themselves, and our southern buttermilk biscuits deserve 2000 words, but because my grandma's biscuits are... the essence of home to me. It's familiar and not measured but eyeballed and done together and enjoyed differently by everyone and handed down from generation to generation and it's constant and changing and... all the things.

    Is it profound? Nope. They're biscuits. But it's what I've got.

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  2. It might just be biscuits, but it is something. It is your words and your thoughts on something that is important to you (an most good southern women). And hey I love biscuits, so you know, its all good.

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