As is true of most of us, I have too much data moving through my desk and life. I need to find some method to reduce but I am alway concerned that I may stop something that I needed to learn. For example, sometimes a little gem comes through. A story about someone doing something for, or with, some other person and group and I end up with tears rolling down my cheeks. Sometimes, I find it hard to breathe for a bit. Then, considering how much information comes into my world each day, I find that sneaky little question rising in my mind. Is it true?
And today, in full force, I answered very loudly “DOES IT MATTER?”.
This is only about positive anecdotal material that drifts around on the web.
People have told stories since they were able to talk with one another. There have been people especially gifted (or, possibly, in a family line of historians/storytellers for the tribe) in the art of remembering and helping others to understand and remember. These stories — sometimes turned into myths — have helped us to create our cultures and our customs and traditions. They help to mold us into what we want to be — and what we want our children, and their children, and our children’s children’s children, …
There has also always been the person who seems to gather up all the current news, good and bad, about the community and, possibly, other communities and feels that it is their duty to “share” this information with everyone they meet. It used to be around the public facilities, perhaps a community fire, where a small group gathered regularly. Then it became around other institutions — the backyard fence, the barbershop or styling salon, the water fountain. If the community was fortunate, the individual (shall we call them the “gossip”?) was not deliberately mean or likely to create false information. If not fortunate, the community was not as healthy as it might have been.
Such face-to-face passing of information continues as a personal parallel to the role of the storyteller. But, in our “modern” age, the anonymous memes of the Internet have taken the role of gossip (or town crier) up a couple of quantum steps. Faster, more penetrating, quickly spread, anonymous (and very hard to attribute), and easily fabricated. We have only entered into the very scary, and hazardous, world of the easily fabricated deep fakes. I shudder.
The role of these memes can supplant the role of gossip but they can also bear the burden of storyteller and archivist. These positive anecdotes, that build upon our desired values, can be of great benefit to both individuals and societies. We can all break down and cry with happiness, or support, or bereavement. They can help us to be our best selves. And it doesn’t matter if they really happened because they are like halloween costumes for the archetypes of our society.
As briefly mentioned, with the light of angels there can also be the shadows of demons.
Do we feed the good within us or the bad?
It is up to us to decide what we want to allow to enter.
