Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash
SO much noise, so little effect, so
many voices, never do they connect.
With many exceptions I’m sure,
social media appears to epitomise the chasm of confusion so pivotal in this age
— understanding that appears person to person but is lost beyond that precious medium.
That paradox remains: utter disconnection and consummate union, simultaneously.
Too much for the mind to bear.
The Sound of Silence was prophetic
of an age just dawning in that 1960s era, yet perhaps ever there as a possibility
of a culture gone awry.
Apocalyptic in presence, there is a
darkness that is ever alluring, especially as we enter the darkness. Darkness
takes us to a deeper starkness we always suspected was there. Our curiosity
causes us to search it out without fear, yet risking, we feel we could become
trapped there. The longer we stay there the more we risk not returning to that
previously lit reality. The longer there, the more the possibility that the
present becomes the only reality possible. The rules there are
incomprehensible. They lack structure and safety. Perhaps we go there in our
dreams. I have.
Social media in this day is noisy,
but it’s a noise that has no real substance. It makes no contribution of lasting
value. There is too much misunderstanding, too little coherence and care, too
much spin.
The world has lost its way. The
stillness has been ripped out of the clutches of silence.
The world is an orphan, having lost
all its identity, and every link of where it came from.
Suddenly silence, which was replete
with import, has no meaning. Unless we, by our intention, shut the ridiculous
world out, restoring ourselves to silence in keeping with the rhythm of our
hearts, especially as our hearts resonate with others’ hearts and the heart of
life and God. An ever redemptive, connective heart.
Where is the hope? It’s in
connection, in deeper connection, where understanding is shared, even as we
might wonderfully understand ourselves.
Social media is shutting us out
from ourselves. It has already shut us out of genuine fellowship with others.
Why do we continue? Because we’re
trapped in the unbearable fear of missing out. This is what it has come to.
Please like me. Please share. Please engage. Please make me fit into your algorithm.
Even when I admit I have lost my way, which now seems secondary, even tertiary.
Acknowledgement to the
unfathomable The Sound of
Silence (Simon and Garfunkel, 1964) and
the innovation of a man to be known as Simon.
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