It has been a family day today and most likely, I might tune out from Steem a little for the rest of the evening too as I am thinking about doing something I haven't done in a while, watch a movie. I can't even remember the last one I saw, but I think it was somewhere around six months ago. Still not sure what the movie will be, hopefully something that adds some kind of value to my thoughts.
Once upon a time, entertainment used to be a way for me to avoid other aspects of my life, the work I had to do or the thoughts I didn't want to think. I suppose entertainment is a tool of avoidance for many these days and as I have long called it, a weapon of mass distraction. I suspect that while we have been led to believe that the end goal is to have more chance to do as we please, what we please is actually fed to us to influence us into passivity rather than activity.
For me, once I stopped consuming I had the space in my life to think and then started creating and through the process I continued to develop myself and the more I did, the more I could do. Thought, creativity and other skill-based processes are powered by usage and atrophy when not applied consistently. And when they are used at a level that challenges them, they stretch to improve and as the cycle continues, the next challenge met can be that much harder. Over time, there is mastery.
I am not sure if there are many masters anymore as for most there is a very heavy reliance on the digital resources available and while some people seem to think they are talented, remove the Google crutches and they fall over time and time again. I see this as a symptom of being entertained rather than developing skills as many get the sense that they have an ability but never have to have it tested openly. It is like watching a Bruce Lee film and believing that the skills are held, even though they have never been practiced, let alone tested.
It is also interesting to note that these days, the internet "masters" spend their time displaying themselves and even get support from those who do not know any better, do not recognize the flaws in the positions. There is always a difference between saying something and doing something and on the internet there are a lot of people saying they have done yet offer no supporting evidence, nor observable behaviors to back their claims. Just words.
I like words as they are part of the process of creation. Thought, word, action.
The thing is that it seems that more often than not the thought is that one has skills they do not, the words express their belief - but the action is missing. Without the movement of thought to action, there is no creation, just stagnant belief and a life of illusion - or delusion as the case may be.
Perhaps the reason why entertainment is such big business is that it supports the illusions we hold of ourselves and keeps us from looking in the mirror long enough to realize, we are not what we think we are.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]