Well, boys and girls, it’s been ages since I’ve mused
elegantly for you. Let’s just say a busy
schedule (i.e.: lack of inspiration) has
kept me from it. To quote Danny Zuko
from Grease: ‘you know how it is, rockin’ and rollin’ and
what not.’
That’s a figure of speech. I personally don’t know how to
rock and roll, but I’ve got a rock and roller living in the house, and while I
couldn’t be more proud of him, it gets terribly loud here sometimes. I don’t like loud noises; that’s why I didn’t
become a rock and roller myself (has nothing to do with my lack of musical
talent). But I digress…
Actually, I don’t.
Today’s topic is all about communication, noise, and differentiating between
the two.
Since Friday’s horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, overzealous
‘reporters’ (I use the term very loosely), desperate to get their drive-by
version of the news out to an eager,
salivating public, have bombarded us with so much speculation that we don’t
know what’s what at this point. An
unspeakable act occurred. That’s all we
really need to know. Our job now is to
send as much healing energy to those who were affected by it, and to see if we
can’t start reaching out to one another on a regular basis.
Communicating, in other words.
How do we do that, though, when we live in a world where
hyperbole reigns supreme? Minor things
are a ‘big deal’ – celebrity feuds, sniffles, and waiting in line at the
grocery store have seemingly become the biggest
hassles ever, and we’ll just burst
if we can’t discuss them repeatedly and
post about them continuously on our social networking sites.
That’s not communicating – it’s merely verbal purging.
Maybe if we all stopped talking for a bit, we might recognize
that we’ve got more than a few lost souls among us. We’ve little spiritual, moral, and
character-building education anymore, and it’s easier to pop a pill rather than
get to the root of a problem and look for nonsynthetic ways in which to treat
it. We’re so plugged in that we’ve tuned
out, desensitized to the world around us.
Perhaps if we took Deepak Chopra’s advice in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and
sat in silence for a day, we’d be more ‘on kilter’ than ‘off’. We’d realize that we’re merely here to serve
humanity in some small way. Pointing
fingers does not serve humanity, by the way, nor does parading a third grader
in front of a camera asking her to recall, in detail, something she should have
never witnessed in the first place.
I think if we practiced the seemingly lost art of
communication, we’d be a happier, healthier lot. Questions such as ‘How are you?’ and ‘How can I help?’ are good places to start (provided that we really
listen to the answers and then take action if necessary). Exaggerations, bold proclamations, and
incessant blah blah blahs haven’t worked.
Let’s turn off the noise for a while, and see what happens.
Beth Newman
