Too much going in, with nothing coming out

sesungguhnya realiti itu tidak indah;

 

     It has become a cultural norm to see everyone staring at their phones these days. While you are waiting at a traffic light, taking the bus or train, or walking anywhere at all, we are constantly looking down. This is not necessarily a bad thing of course (minus the part when you bump into people or trip over something), the world of technology has opened a gateway to endless information and a world without boundaries. It's great! So great in fact, that we get to know well, anything at all! We know exactly when that guy kicked a cat for being annoying, or that woman who won money just by being herself, maybe those videos that can change the way you look at things, just because this guy used a bottle to separate an egg yolk than the normal way people usually do it. There's also endless quizzes, that can provide you with on the spot answers about your personality, that it's just like magic! Wonder what one word describes you best? Click here to find out! Curious about what type of guy suits you? Answer these questions to know! It's alright if you don't get the answer you want anyway, you can just try again (in case the magic didn't work). Funny cat videos, various life tips and life hacks, and signs of if you really are happy or not, all these information storm through our brain day in and day out as we scroll and scroll and keep scrolling. 

     We keep scrolling until we reach a point when we have heard or seen it before. it won't take long before you realize that it wasn't that life changing when you tried that soup diet, or when that baby did something adorable or funny. Like a stale joke that has been told over and over again, the information repeats itself in a different new dress with a shade of red lipstick and a pair of heels from Charles and Keith. Yet we still buy it, and we laugh, and we fall for this captivating damsel. The real issue at hand is actually not the information, (after all it isn't possible to stop people from trying to post more videos of their cats doing acrobatic moves). We gain all these input and yet, the output is so fairly small. These ideas, news and stories are aimed to keep us amused, inspired, and boost our confidence into doing things in the real world, but half of the time we just feel amazed for a second and then move on to the next. As John F Kennedy once stated, "The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds". It is sad to see that with all these knowledge going around like wild fire, we are still sitting idle  behind our screens, waiting somehow for something magic to unfold and solve everything. We rely on our likes and comments to prove we care or disagree, and that's most probably all we do.  How many of us are really out there making the news or making changes? How many of us are using the inquired knowledge to do something successful?   Of course this is where people insert their helpless lines of "There's nothing I can do about it," or "I really don't have the time" etc. On the other hand we are not too busy to promote that vacation we took to New Zealand last week, or snap a photo of this delicious meal costing more than we can really afford.

     Perhaps it is time for us to stop scrolling,  and do more with what we know. No, we don't have to organize a huge campaign or take an outrageous step. Maybe all we have to do is put down the phone and switch off the laptop for minute and go outside. Just to see what is really going on without having the need to record it and post it later. As they say in math, each input is related to exactly one output. I can daresay that we have more than enough input by now, and it's time to balance it out. Besides, who else do you think is going to write or inspire any new things for people to scroll through? That's right. It's you (and I really don't mean selfies at this point).

(20150314)