One of the interesting things about writing for a public audience, is that everyone who reads it seems to think that it is personal. It is a little like the presentation technique of singling out an individual in the crowd to speak to, rather than trying to look at every face, except the author doesn't choose who they look at, or who responds. However, I have always been fascinated by how people who are a distributed across the world are able to connect themselves to the experiences of others, when at the local level, things might be very different.
For instance, while I go to the store and buy my groceries, where one of my past friends lives, she has limited access to water, let alone clean water, almost zero access to medicine and life is a daily struggle. Yet, we each have an understanding that we each have a different set of circumstances in this world that we each have to cope with the best we can.
Yet online, people seem to think that whenever they consume content, it has to be catered for them, as if the author is meant to know and represent their particular set of unique conditions, covering all bases. And when all bases aren't covered, it is these points that will be brought up as being wrong, even if the general sense of the content is correct, no matter where it is.
Not only this, people will also grab onto tiny slices of information, the tree, rather than the forest, because for whatever reason, it is that slice that resonates with them, or rubs them the wrong way. Yet, what they are actually evaluating may be a fantasy, something that they are reading into the meaning, based on their own imagination, their own opinions, their own prejudice.
Fantasy is always a prejudiced perspective, because it is a creation from a mind based on experience, opinion, and of course, misunderstanding. A fantasy needn't be connected to reality at all, and the internet has become a place where people not only feel safe with expressing their fantasies, but also a place where the fantasies of others collide, group, and coagulate into a pseudo-truth. And, because there are others in support, the new truth is cemented as such, as a fact of reality, rather than a fiction of the mind.
And then there is the outlier challenge, where people will continually bring up the exception, as if it is evidence that the average is wrong. The average is an average, it is not a truth, it is an amalgamation of multiple data points. The exception might be a truth, but it can be an outlier, like the person who smoked a pack a day their entire life, and lived healthily. Because a handful of people in the world have done so, would you encourage your children to do so, because they might beat the odds? What about being overweight? Would you suggest for your children to eat what they want, get as big as they can, because all sizes are beautiful and there are no associated health problems?
Hmmm.
Someone shouldn't be shamed for being overweight. But, everyone should be encouraged to be healthy. Just like someone who was abused as a child should be encouraged to build healthy relationships, rather than continue on with abusive conditions and patterns, perhaps where they become the abuser, creating new victims.
Yet, we live in a fantasy world, where people believe that they know what is best for themselves, and for others, based on their feeling about right and wrong. And, no matter how right or wrong they may be, we also live in a world where we can pick and choose the content of our lives, the food for thought that becomes our opinion, our belief system. And what else can we do, but relate everything we consume to ourselves?
I believe that empathy can be harmful. And often is.
No.
It is the ability to believe one can understand and share the feelings of another. Those who believe they are empathetic, are narcissists suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect.
You don't know how I feel. You can't know how I feel. You can think you know, you can think you can put yourself in my shoes, you might think that because we shared a similar experience you understand, but it is bullshit. It is not that you are necessarily wrong, but assuming you are right because you fell you are right, is ridiculous.
Another fantasy in your mind.
All of human life is an interpretation, and the way we evaluate and consider what we consume, is going to be influenced by who we are, down to the atomic level, and everything up. All of our experience, the culture we never chose, the genes that determine our eye and skin color, the food we were forced to eat as children - it all has a say on our experience and our opinions, belief systems, and gullibility.
Why was that particular sliver of text the one you held onto?
What makes that passage or idea important enough to comment upon, to rail against, to complain about, to pick apart or support? Why do you believe what you do and does your experience support your beliefs? More importantly,
Do your actions support your beliefs?
Like having a gold cross hanging around the neck, whilst gunning down a drug dealing rival in the street.
Have you no shame from living in such contradiction?
But we humans, we can justify anything. Ff we believe it is in our own best interest to do so. Our morality can be bought for the price of the fantasy we weave to excuse ourselves, to absolve us of responsibility for our actions.
The reason people get so triggered by what strangers might say online, is because all the content they consume is personal for them, as they are the consumer. It doesn't matter if it was not targeted at them. It doesn't matter if the author has no knowledge or care at all about the person or group who might chance upon it. It is personal, because once we start reading, our imagination makes it so, building a narrative it can understand, whether it is an accurate portrayal of what is being said or not.
Everyone in the crowd gets singled out.
Because each of us consumes our fantasies alone.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
