Fixing The News: Part 3 of 3
Fixing The News | Part 3 of 3
Contents
Human Nature
Enough
Putting Our Focus Where It Belongs
Our Native State
Culture
Doing Our Part
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The train-wreck allure that draws us to negative headlines seems built-in and unlikely to go away.
We crave that conflict, that drama, the juicy gossip about the neighbors.
It’s very human to be fascinated by tragedy.
Human Nature
There’s an inborn predisposition for this.
The animal kingdom still does it. It’s called predator inspection. The act of getting close to danger, like a gazelle hedging closer to a cheetah; observing the frightening in order to get a gauge of its threat, and an idea of how it might be handled.
Think of the last time you couldn’t resist peering over the edge of a tall building.
When it comes to us humans it once served a greater purpose. Now we need it less. Now we have the means to educate ourselves as to various dangers and formulate responses, without the need for morbid ogling.
Now we’re evolved enough to fight the urge, able to consciously resist the impulse to look when we know we really have no business looking. To drive by the flashing lights at the accident scene and keep our eyes on the road.
Yet … it’s not easy. That impulse is still deeply ingrained within us.
The news media relies on it.
Enough
One snapshot of the swath of destruction of what a tornado can do is enough.
Maybe not even that.
Pair that snapshot with some helpful information on what to do, how to be prepared, etc., and that’s as far as the value of inspecting the danger of tornadoes goes. At this stage of our evolution we’re able to become intelligently informed and make rational, not emotional, decisions.
We don’t need a relentless slideshow of the juiciest, cherry-picked aftermath photos to learn more about how destructive a twister can be.
We get the message.
Still, we can’t help but look.
Though the concept has survival value, the way this natural human impulse is used to manipulate us only stokes fear and raises blood pressure. The opportunities for doomscrolling we’re fed ‘round the clock fill that urge beautifully.
But it’s empty calories.
We gain nothing from such morbid fascination – beyond what information can be gleaned about safeguarding ourselves against similar catastrophe.
And that doesn’t take much.
The rest is gluttony.
We crave it, the same way we crave another candy bar. Yet, like a candy bar, it’s equally pointless to our existence. The fact that we even have a term like “doomscrolling” in our modern lexicon is a bad enough sign.
We don’t have to perpetuate it
Again, if you can help solve the tragedy, in any capacity, please do. Be useful. Otherwise don’t ogle. Tragedy does not need spectators.
Putting Our Focus Where It Belongs
There’s a saying: “Coups and earthquakes sell newspapers.”
But it doesn’t need to be that way.
We could take control.
In the interest of putting those macabre desires aside (at least when it comes to reality; no one’s saying we should stop watching horror movies), we could choose instead to focus on the positive.
What would happen if we only paid attention to the things that have us winning?
Could we shift those negative headlines to page 3, 4 or 12, moving the good news, to page 1 and 2?
Instead of having to scroll to find the good stuff, let us instead scroll long and far to get the negative news. The bad stuff. The drama and the trauma we can’t seem to get enough of.
Can you imagine?
You go to your favorite news source and on the front page are amazing new discoveries, achievements (like the Inspiration4 story), sports wins, stories of human kindness, successes in space and technology, winning business news, headway being made in fields of human advancement and so on.
Where’s the bad stuff?
Of course it’s still there. The other news still needs to be reported. But you have to work your way down to find it. It’s not at the top. The good stuff is.
That’s a suggestion that will probably never see the light of day, but how cool would that be?
Instead of having to hunt for the tech news, the news of progress, discovery and advancement, it would be right there, front and center in all our news feeds.
Make us hunt for the other stuff.
Who knows?
After a while maybe we’d get tired of looking for it.
Our Native State
As a test of this principle, next time you’re talking with someone who seems mostly negative about things, ask yourself:
How much of that is their own, true outlook?
How much of that is, or has been, influenced by the negative energy being fed them by the media?
We’re all subject to that steady bombardment.
As we get older, it only piles up.
Illustrating this contrast, have you noticed few children are anything less than wildly optimistic?
Enthusiasm, energy, optimism, positive outlook – these things are what you might call our native state.
We’re born with those traits.
Good news is, we never truly lose them. It’s only over time that we begin to go into agreement with the negative energy thrown our way.
The positive drive is always there.
It is us.
It only gets beaten down.
Battered until we have a hard time reviving it.
Yet … it never leaves. It can’t leave, because it’s who we are.
The rest is just crap that’s been piled on.
Our space future depends on us being able to dust off that child-like wonder and enthusiasm, restoring the core of our character once more.
It depends on us being able to ignore the fear mongers and chaos merchants who, though quite decidedly in the minority, have access to the largest bullhorns.
Culture
Culture plays a vital role in this.
The values we instill.
Most of us are blank slates when we begin our lives. With the exception of the very few inherently evil among us, bad people in the world are mostly our creation. The wrong and the injustice in the world equally so.
We did it.
It may be uncomfortable to own up to that, but it is reality.
Whatever’s going on, we either let it happen, or we made it happen.
This goes for the bad and the good.
Everything good, everything amazing, every great accomplishment and every great new member of the next generation that was raised right and shown a world of hope …
All of it us.
This world is ours and only ours.
Think of your house. What happens in your house is the responsibility of everyone living there. No one else.
Earth is our house.
What happens here is our responsibility.
A responsibility that scales.
See to yourself, your area, your people.
Doing Our Part
The friction in the world can seem overwhelming, but it isn’t if we each do our part. It isn’t if we each decide to take responsibility.
It isn’t if we each make the decision to build the positive into our respective cultures, to nurture and instill strong values of community and purpose, hope and inspiration in ourselves and, vitally, in the up-and-coming generations in our charge.
It’s about taking control of our destiny. About no longer agreeing to be victims.
Perhaps more importantly, it’s about no longer wanting to be victims.
It’s about change.
One by one, starting with each of us.
If you make it a habit of refusing to behave badly you start a trend. If you make it a habit of refusing to hear ill, those negative people around you will either stop talking to you (or you them), or they’ll snap out of it and realize the choice to be negative is their own, and they’re free to change their mind.
One by one.
A better world awaits.
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