Sunday, 16 August 2015

Fear and the news

We were listening to a podcast the other day (NPR TED talks on Maslow's Human Needs April 17) and they said 'We shouldn't fear what we read in the news, as that's rare and unlikely to happen to us. It's the things that happen so often they don't make the news; that are so frequent they're no longer news worthy, that we should fear. Car accidents, domestic violence and so on'.

I think it is true - as I look at the terrible calamities around me, it's cancer, childhood illness and divorce taking their toll, not the incidents gracing the papers. I'm not sure if that's something to be thankful for or not.

This may be a small shift in the lens I view the mankind with, but I think it may have seismic results.

Of course, it doesn't take away my responsibility to instigate change for others, to try to help my fellow planet dwellers and to save our planet and all species on it. Just focus a little more clearly on the world around us, and the little universe around me.

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.”

Marshall McLuhan

I know this is a little unfinished thought, but it's been buzzing around my head for days, and I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with it....so I'm putting it to bed.

Linking with Flat Bum Mum
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous17 August 2015 at 08:41

    I recently read the speech This Is Water by David Wallace Foster for the first time. It's a meaning of life-ish speech and I thought it was so amazing... and so relevant to your post.

    His thoughts culminate with:

    "The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over
    and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom."

    It's worth a read if you haven't : http://www.metastatic.org/text/This%20is%20Water.pdf

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    1. Lydia C. Lee18 August 2015 at 13:06

      Cheers - will look into it...(I've written a lot on our responsibility to the rest of the human race & how we can make a difference, over the last 18 months)

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  2. Kirsty21 August 2015 at 00:48

    I can understand your need to put this on the page and move on until you can fully formalise your thoughts on this Lydia. That is disturbing in many ways - that what we should fear is all around us and so accepted that it is not considered news. I look forward to reading your further thoughts on this in future posts.

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  3. Unknown23 August 2015 at 20:42

    Thanks for linking up with me!!
    I actually listened to this podcast a while ago and as soon as I read your description I remembered it. I think we have become very de-sensitised to the cruelty that happens in our world often right under our noses. I hope that we can all try to look after each other just a little more.

    Bron x

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  4. Kaz @ Melting Moments28 August 2015 at 03:57

    Great post. I try to avoid the news as it gets me down. I'll have to have a listen to that talk.

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