The World Is Yours, Or At Least The Size of It Is

Photo by Dennis Jarvis from Halifax, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The way things are now is not how they started out, though it is easy enough to forget that when living in moments that are always striving for the future.

Just after the new year in 2018 I put a piece of writing up on Medium. These days, after writing and doing other media for the last four years, which isn’t unusual. But all those things from then until now came from that one piece. Somehow, despite having something like 20 Twitter followers and 6 Medium followers, folks found it. And read it. And shared it. And shared it. And it started getting attention. Then, some established writers and media folks suggested it. Then others started to notice. I wrote a few more things, and Will Truman asked if I’d like to “do something sometime” with Ordinary Times which turned into the place I’ve been writing and collaborating at ever since. Radio, media hits, my own Heard Tell program, the #twittersupperclub, all of that came from folks reading, and thankfully connecting, with that piece.

Besides the cathartic parts of getting my own story out, my main point in writing that original piece was to make this point about why I got a Twitter account – my first social media of any kind – and started publicly writing while dealing with health issues: when my world started to get dangerously isolated and small, Twitter made it bigger.

Therapy, medication, and support are the most important tools for mental health patients. Now we can add to that the ability, through technology, for that person to reach a wider world when they are ready to reach outside of their isolation. This is a development that should be praised and explored, as any avenue for piercing the darkness of isolation should be used to reach those that need it. In a nation that is increasingly in crisis with how we care for and address mental health, there are more questions than solutions. The rise and increasing importance of social media, and the parts of our lives that are entrenched in them, will no doubt be researched and debated for some time. But one thing we do know is that social media gives each of us a reach far beyond that which we would otherwise have. And with that reaching out there is always the potential to connect to another person in a positive way, which is good for the health of us all

For all the debate, discussion, and derision social media gets for good, bad, and admittedly sometimes truly ugly, it is a tool. The wielder of the tool decides the usefulness of it, and if its purpose will be for good or ill. The hammer can build a house for the homeless or bludgeon an innocent without the metal and wood knowing or caring the difference.

We, as a people, should be better craftsman with our technology and stop blaming our tools.

The line goes that the average smart phone of today has more computing power than all of NASA for the Apollo moon missions. In the palm of our hands, or opening of a laptop, or table, or desktop, or smart watch we now have the ability to instantly pull up the full depth and breadth of human history and knowledge. Mostly, we use this immense power that the ancients would have worshipped as god-like to make fun of each other, trade pet pictures, and complain about anything and everything.

We have far too often taken the tech marvels of our time and instead of using it to expand our world, utilized that power to reinforce their own tendencies, gather in groups of same-think, and generally make an online world that is more comforting and affirming than the real one is. Which was inevitable; human nature is undefeated and despite what the utopians tell us technological innovation is going to enhance, not change, what humans have already been struggling with since the first two argued over whatever they argued about. Seeking affirmation instead of information, feeding on a steady diet of bad news and blame shifts, allowing your self-controlled media intake to spoon feed you prejudice instead of perspective, and on, and on, and on…

We can do better. The world is not only yours, but you can make your world bigger than the small worlds, small minds, and small impacts of the unworthy schemers, the grifters, the charlatans, the big personalities with big followings that upon closer inspections are just the wide end of the funnel that ends up with everything centered on they themselves.

It only cost you clicks and maybe a Google search or three to trust, but verify. It costs you nothing to not send that overly snarky and unfairly mean social media post. You don’t lose online points for all the worst impulses no one ever knows about because you took a moment to reconsider and let it go. It could mean all the world to someone else, that very small kindness you put online instead, the word of encouragement, the honest moment of struggle and overcoming that inspires another, the boosting of signal for a good cause or a great need that needs met or a righteous outrage that needs more good folks to come along side of.

The way things are now are not how they started. The way things could be if we just start now by striving to make our world – online and in real life – always expanding in hope and improvement instead of constantly narrowing with ill will and lack of faith with the tools we have. What a world that would be for you, and everyone else, and it is only a few clicks and some good decisions away.

The world is yours. Use it for good.