To Be a Good Archeologist, You Gotta' Get out of the Library
I am going to say something controversial: I think we as a human race are in far better shape than we think.
There, I said it. The forever optimistic, snarky, sarcastic blogger has the opinion that we are doing A-ok.
I am going to say something else controversial: The media lies to us. Whelp!
I stopped watching the news around the time I moved out of my childhood home at the age of 20. For the last decade or so I have chosen not to follow online media sites, nor do I read the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other news source. I also do not scroll the apps on my phone in order to keep up on the happenings of politics, climate change, public health, or any other buzz worthy topic. To many I am ignorantly “disconnected from the world”.
Despite my efforts to avoid exposure to the highly censured mass media, it still seems to be the hot topic of many formal and informal discussions of my day. Be it a Facetime with my family members back home, or the pub owner of a specialty beer establishment on an island in Greece.
I somehow still find myself adrift with this carefully curated exposure to the real world. Aware of such miseries as the latest Covid case count, the wild fires in Yosemite, and the assassination of some world leader or another. What I mean is, no matter my efforts to create my own perception of reality, the world as the media portrays it and what it wants you to believe, continues to be the pervasively popular narrative.
The funny thing about truth and reality is that truth strongly depends on what the majority, or the loudest group, believes to be true, and reality is determined very specifically by the culmination of truths a certain individual believes. A thing as simple as deciding the color of a paint swatch is only possible if the majority of viewers can agree that it is blue. But, it is a guarantee that someone out there still views it as red. The truth, or the fact, is thus, still arbitrary. And to make it more interesting, these tiny truths that we differ on are what creates our own personal reality, meaning literally not a single human being is viewing the world exactly the same. Boy, does that complicate things.
This is why, I theorize, we as a whole love being spoon-fed information. It is difficult to handle the variety of realities occurring at any given time, so we turn to our so-called experts to tell us what to believe and whether or not the majority sees blue or red, so that we too, can be informed of the most acceptable version of the truth.
I completely understand this. A daily life requires so much decision making, strategizing, and exhaustive thinking, that when there could be 100 relevant bullet points to consider on any given day, its a relief to feel as if there are trustworthy people putting together the most important of these facts in concise, digestible summaries.
I also understand that watching the news most definitely does not mean you are taking all of this newsworthy reporting at face value. It may serve as a launching pad for your own additional reading and investigation, or perhaps as a conversation starter with other people you respect and want to discuss further.
However. In my experience, allowing this particular launching pad to even take hold, still anchors you to media delivered truths. Where every day you wake up and think, How am I to Survive the Hellscape that is the World?
To momentarily ignore the conspiracy theories of why news outlets report what they do, the effects, in my opinion, are discouraging: A global fear of other humans and the world around them.
The fear that every other person is absolutely carrying the disease that will wipeout me and my family. Or the fear of other because they choose to legally carry a firearm.
Or the fear of anyone who’s gender and sexuality identification doesn’t mesh with their beliefs. Or the fear of someone because their views on abortion or climate change differ from yours.
We are afraid of mass shootings. Access to healthcare. Illness. We are afraid of increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, flying on airplanes, religious radicalism, cancel culture, pesticides, soil fertility, democrats, republicans, even whether or not we are raising a psychopath as a result of too much or too little love. I mean, the list is endless.
Fear and precaution are inherent to our survival, I understand that. But, imagine if every hunter gatherer of our ancestors, heard about the big bad predators in the wild from some gossipy Gus in a neighboring village, and decided the only safe approach was to stay in their home, hiding their family away from the scary world outside.
They’d die. They’d starve. The human race as we know it would seize to exist.
Take my fear of bears, for example. Every Joe Rogan episode with an avid hunter would have you believe that upon encountering a bear in the wild, it will with certainty tear your face off and eat your guts. In the past two years, I have personally encountered nine total bears. Two of which who were clearly mama bears shuttling her cubs to safety. And several of which we stumbled upon literally on trails, unawares of their presence until standing just 10-15 feet away.
With so many close calls, this may come as a surprise, but my face is still in tact, and my guts are safely situated in my skin suit over here. I didn’t have to fight off any aggressive giants, or even run for my life. The threat passed. Bear and human remained in peaceful harmony.
This bear example can be applied to the publicized threats I mentioned above. Disease. Natural disaster. Racists. Murders. Rapists. Catholics. Atheists. Any individual thing that we have been told to fear in one way or another. If I became absorbed with the horrific warnings of dangers in the woods, you could imagine how convenient the choice to never hike a trail again would be. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Right?
Just like we so desperately want the cliff notes on who we should vote for in the next election, or which male movie star is the new pervert of the month, I’d say it is understandable why we also find comfort and convenience in being told what to fear.
These past few years have been complicated. Overflow of information littered with statistics and numbers and “science” have us also facing the is it blue or red question, and coming up a little muddled. Not sure what is actual reality.
Its been long enough though, huh? Never has their been a better time to get out from under the comfort of your own roof and consider walking amongst the metaphorical bears to see what the fear mongering was all about. To explore the world around you and get your own two feet back into the arena of life. And I mean, the vast, diverse arena, not just the arena you safely created to confirm your biases and perpetuate the tunnel vision we all are prone to ease into.
Traveling to Texas you will find that not everyone is a god-fearing, NRA member who takes immigration personally, for example. Or spending some time in Florida may have you questioning your proclamation of Death-Santis and instead seeing what life can still look like even while living with the reality of coronavirus.
If anything, it may be time to no longer avoid the conversations that we disagree on. How many times I have heard this as the ultimate solution: I can spend time with person X as long as we don’t talk about Y. How singular and uninteresting our world views will soon be if we are only experiencing a life that completely agrees with every belief we have firmly established for ourselves. No conflict, so no growth, and then we all die boring deaths.
Having stepped into the arena for myself in the past few years, traveling to multiple countries amidst travel restrictions and over 10 states (including the most controversial of California, Texas, and Florida) it has become abundantly clear that still, people everywhere are just trying to do their best to live a life of joy and security.
In other words, to be a good a human, or at least in order to have the ability to formulate informed opinions about the world around you, it is irresponsible to trust the mass media and the reality portrayed to us online, on the television, or in print. I may even go as far as quoting Indiana Jones, as he impossibly finesses his motorcycle under the scholarly tables of the archeology students, that in order to be a good archeologist, you have to get out of the library.
If anything, being a little more thoughtful about why we are holding onto these deep truths, and instead freeing yourself to let go of the rooted view of reality that you have assumed. Enjoy the inner peace that comes from listening rather than screaming blue at those who are seeing red.
All of this to encourage anyone who is still reading to get out there and see reality for your own two eyes. See the kindness that remains in the world despite all of our differences, and especially to experience the safety and security that still exists in all corners. It may even be enough to convince you that it is not the world and others that threaten your happiness, but only yourself.