I want to eat clean food, breathe clean air, and drink clean water. So how come we allow contaminated messages to saturate our minds?
We are constantly receiving information and messages, so much so that we are unaware of most. When we are not aware that we are receiving, specifically ones that are not our own, we are passively receiving that information. When one is aware, there is an ability to take control. Or at least, to manage it. The quantity of consumption does not matter: Whether it is a little or too much, any type of media is invasive in nature.
Too often we passively allow messages, images, content, visuals, headlines, and words to trespass. Yes, trespass – I did not give permission to see billboards that take my eyes off the road. The publicizing to tell me about how a company is better or what is on sale at the supermarket. I did not ask to learn headlines spewing all kinds of statements, while I wait to check out items. I may make the decision to turn on a television or radio, however, I am not in control of the visuals or content. So, by nature I am in a secondary role, letting something come to me, letting something happen to me. You are hopefully asking, is something happening?
Conversely, ideas, insights, original thoughts, and solutions never arrive when you are a viewer or submissive listener inside of mass media’s tunnel. Does being told that something is open or that a homicide occurred better your life? Enhance your being? Help you strive towards enlightenment? Some forms of media are pure entertainment, an escape for a couple of hours. But do we ever really escape it?
Like a black hole, continuous days, and nights of news, that Instagram account or following a Twitter feed. Year after year, day after day, night after night, news story after news story, minds passively observing the presentation, the marriage of words with visuals. What are they saying to you?
Every day there’s an interchange of constant messages. Some are clear, some are not. Some verbal, some nonverbal. Some are endless black and white headlines scrolling along the television screen. Some are blocks of red, alarming, and stressful. Messages bouncing around a room, the world, your brain, everyone’s brains.
Look at this! Hear this! Get this! It’s exciting, it’s fun! We have all the answers! This is the truth! This is what happened! Don’t miss this!
And if your interest wanes, something else is right there calling you, inciting you.
Arsenal met with a free pass – we put up no discernment or opposition. Open laptops monitoring humanity’s vitals: war, money, stock market, business, crime, politics, the world, sports, arts, technology, entertainment, and weather. Rushing national, metro, and local coverage, feeds, and tickers. It is like an incubator, and your mind is suspended in an (their) operating room, each injected message replacing oneself, sucking your ears, eyes, and brain into the media vortex.
It does not end. The ventriloquism goes all around the world, predictable messages about the weather, traffic, sports, events and so on. Loose and unimportant affairs of celebrities and fictional television shows or movies. Newscasters’ incessant talk. Experts’ opinions. I am, everybody is, saturated and swollen with information. Information miscarriages. Diminishing our own energy.
It is a frightening ritual. Meaningless information coated with fear is thrust out and put into personal and collective consciousness. Then, with the next story, they are displaced. Or evaporated? Did the information disappear? Is it part of you? Our minds are a sacred space, but they have been seized. With awareness we can recognize whether media and mass messaging reflect society or project into society.
