“Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?”
Tina Turner
Watching a commercial for any current TV show I’m left asking the question: What’s love got to do with it?
We are told that what we read in books and see on TV and at the cinema is a reflection of society. The more I see society change and study history I am left questioning if it isn’t the other way around.
What if what we consume is engineering us rather than the other way around? Almost every preview of an upcoming reality TV show I see has almost nothing to do with the actual premise of the show and instead showcases the contestants behaving in ways parents tell their kids not to act.
With our ever-increasing consumption of media is it any surprise that we are seeing more dysfunction in society? But when did all this start? Go to any streaming service and you’ll find the genre category of drama. When did you last see a survey reporting that people were wanting more drama in their life? A usual comment in a conversation would be that someone wanted less drama in their life.
Looking at the viewing options in the romance section and I’m left asking the question the Black Eyed Peas did, “Where is the love?” By love I don’t mean the feeling, I mean the action, the verb, the self-sacrifice. The mental health organisation Grow which started in Sydney, Australia in 1957 has helped tens of thousands improve their mental health and many more in other countries.
One of the sayings I remember from when I was involved years ago was, “Feelings are not facts”. I’d be concerned if you could find any mental health professional that would disagree with that statement. Yet everything from mainstream media seems to be telling me to make my life decisions based on how I feel.
Generations
Every generation seems to be changing at an ever increasing rate. How far back would we have to go to see where all this started? We have a better standard of living now with all the advancements in technology making our lives simpler and easier but part of me is starting to ask, “What have we given up in the process?” How many decades or generations would we need to go back to a time where people cared for each other more? Would it be WWII where we lost not only so many people that could have grown to be parents and grandparents, but also the natural state of safety and security taken for granted. Or would we have to go back to WWI is that when we started to seek escape?
We haven’t seen a war like WWII since then but with countries around the world perpetually at war now it’s almost like war has been normalised. Now rather than waiting for a telegram or the nightly news bulletin on the radio or reading about it in the newspaper days later, we are seeing the destruction of our planet on our phones 24/7 in real time.
The advancements
I heard a talk a columnist gave recently and he commented about when he started he either looked up the encyclopaedias in his house or went to the library, and now he can do everything on his phone.
Have all these wonderful advancements actually made our lives worse not better?
A university study done in America a few years ago showed a rapid decline in empathy over the last four decades. Are we to blame or is media? If it is media then shouldn’t we take responsibility for allowing it?
We are taught we are what we eat and with ever increasing health issues in our society we are being told to eat healthier and exercise more. If we applied the same logic to the media we consume I wonder how long it would take to see a tangible difference in our world.
What if the generally accepted definition of love became what can I do for someone else rather than how that person makes me feel?
Let me leave you this month with this, one of my all-time favourite quotes on love.
"Love is more than a feeling, it is a tenacious, courageous commitment. It is the courage to remain faithful when the cost seems greater than the reward. Love waits with hope for redemption even in the midst of the darkest despair."
Dan B Allender and Tremper Longman
Neville Hiatt’s previous posts for Press Services International can be read here. He spent a decade working for Radio Stations before his career was intermissioned by someone in a hurry to get home from work. He now runs http://nevillehiatt.com where he shares his desire to Inspire, Create, Motivate, and Educate through his photography, poetry and short stories. He occasionally blogs for http://altcoincollege.com/ covering the way cryptocurrencies and blockchain are changing our world.