I'm a real person

The world is tough for everyone.

Each day presents its own challenges, each morning its own struggles. From the very first moment you wake up, the weight of expectation creeps in at the edges of your consciousness. Doubt creeps in over your actions the previous day. Did I complete that task I was supposed to? Did I remember to pay that bill? 

Your mind kicks into gear, running through all the activities that will fill the day ahead. The questions start again. Could I get away with staying in bed all day? What should I have for breakfast? Will the commute to work be a good or bad one? Will I still have a job when I do make it in? All these thoughts, all these stresses, all these competing priorities and you haven’t even opened your eyes.

Your questions will almost certainly be different, but I have no doubt that there will be some. That’s the funny thing about the human mind, it has a tendency to get carried away with itself at times. It’s thought processes are so difficult to control and yet so easily influenced by any external stimulus. So much going on inside each and every person. The struggles are real within that persons mind and influence their actions. Each person is a storm of thought and emotion, with their own hang-ups, predispositions, fears, joys and conflicts.

However, it has begun to dawn on me that something in not quite right with the way we interact with each other. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that things have been great up until recently, because clearly they haven’t. History is filled with horrible atrocities committed by one person against another. What I’m talking about in this particular rant is that it feels, at least to me, that, our ability to relate to one another, to accept different points of view has taken a backward step.

Online and the Real World

It may well be that it was never there to begin with, however I choose not to believe that was the case. It is easy to place the blame with social media and the time it consumes, and of which I am guilty. I can’t really deny that I crave the attention and validation or others (I started up a website to promote myself after all), so I won’t fault that trait in others. Social media and all that it entails can be a very useful and powerful part of  everyday life. It allows as to connect across distances and find a community of people for us to interact with that in the past would have been impossible. 

It is the crossing of distance that makes these platforms so powerful and yet it is the way we are able to distance ourselves from the consequences of our online selves that I believe is also creating the problem. It is too easy to jump on a wave of twitter condemnation, too easy to get into a written slanging match in the comments section of news article, too easy to tear people apart on Facebook for having an opinion you don’t agree with. It is all too easy to forget that there are (for the most part) real people behind those comments, and then even if there aren’t, even if you are feeding the trolls, surely we can conduct ourselves more civilly.

However what concerns me most, and what I have really started to notice of late is that what happens to the vitriolic commentator when they leave the keyboard behind and go out into the real world. My fear is that it becomes too difficult to separate the online attitudes to inter-person interaction, from in-person interactions. The, me first, your viewpoint is wrong and I don’t care what you think or what you are doing attitude to life becomes the only way that people are able to interact. The only problem is that there are no ‘bots’ walking around the street. There are only real people, with real struggles, simply trying to make their way through their day. People are so combative in their online interactions it is carrying over to the real world and it makes the world a much less enjoyable place to get around in.

Make a change

I want to be better, and I always try to treat people with a degree of respect. If I disagree with a person or opinion, I will put forward the case for my point of view in the hope that it might cause that other person to think about their view. Sometimes this is hard, as last year’s marriage equality survey proved. Sometimes the other party doesn’t want to hear your point of view. No amount of shouting, denigrating or insulting will change that persons mind. It will only push them deeper into that hole. I’m not advocating that we don’t try to have those difficult interactions, merely that we should recognise when to cut our losses. Civility and respect will do more to get a person onside that hatred. 

If you take anything away from this piece let it be this, if you encounter something that upsets you, either online or in the real word, take a breath. Before you attack, before you respond, try and put yourself in that persons shoes for a moment, look at the world from their point of view, consider what may have informed their view or their action and try to understand why they acted the way they did. Having taken this moment, as well as being calmer yourself through the passage of time, you will also be in a better position to counter their arguments. 

Like everything on this page, this is just my opinion.

Be kind to each other. We’re all in this together.

Welcome Feedback

The purpose of this blog is for me to write about things that interest me. I have no doubt that from time to time I will write something your disagree with and that’s perfectly fine. I respect your view that may be different to mine (although I will not tolerate homophobia, bigotry, or racism as it should have no place in our society). If you want to tweet or comment about something I write, you should feel free to do so, but please remember that I am a real person, with real emotions, and your words can have an impact, so please be respectful.