Today everyone is a prophet. When you live in a “bumper sticker mentality culture” - prophecy is reduced to sloganeering. Thanks to Facebook and other social media creations, opinions are easy to find today – in fact they are so ubiquitous they have essentially become meaningless.
To some extent I am guilty of this as well. It is easy to come up with a “catchy phrase” that will get immediate attention. Of course, like all uplifting phrases and slogans their positive effect is short-lived. Unless a transformative change occurs, it only takes a few minutes for the new to quickly resemble the old.
Unfortunately, it also makes the quick return to your old state gloomier than it was before. I suspect many people experience this on a regular basis.
This is what happens when you live in a culture that has an attention span of a few minutes. This works when you are seeking immediate, personal gratification and little else. It provides instant highs and lows with little realism in between. Being realistic with a degree of reasonable optimism is difficult.
When you get too much of a supposedly good thing – it ceases to be a good thing and is soon taken for granted like all other things that are easy to find any time you choose to look. Some might say they are also easy to find even when you choose not to look. As for me, I will continue to sound off and let the chips fall where they may.
There has to be some hidden, if not blatant arrogance in those of us who feel compelled to write. The presumption that you have something to say that other people might be interested in is presumption enough without going any further.
It was summed up best for me by a writer friend. She said, “As for me, I no longer write for an audience. I now write for myself. It has become a way for me to hone my thinking processes. I have always been curious about many things, often quite different, and writing is a way for me to sort out my thinking.
At the very least, she seems to know what she is doing.
Brother Giovanni
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