OPINIONS & INSPIRATION

May 20th, 2020

   The media, all media, whether it be a new station, a newspaper, or a social media platform is at core a method for sharing information.  All of these platforms function because our basic desire to know what’s going on.

The way we interact with these data sources determines the impact of the data far more than what the data actually is.

Meaning: for some people media is like a dungeon of opinion, and for others it’s a fountain of inspiration.

The difference has less to do with the source and content of the actual media and has more to do with how that media lands, what sort of mind it interacts with.

For those who have an emotional makeup that is more likely to be determined by external forces rather than internal regulation, much of media forms an opinion dungeon.  These platforms function as a kind of self torture where people subjugate themselves to influences that create rage and anger, and it seems and feels like non-negotiable fact from such a perspective.  The opinions of those deemed ignorant, wrong or stupid haunt such people, and the constant catastrophe and crisis of life seems like the rational input for creating all this poor opinion in addition to being another, perhaps primary source of anxiety and torture.

On the other hand, a person who has developed powerful mechanisms and strategies for regulating emotion from an internal locus of control does not provide the same fertile soil for reactions of rage, anxiety and depression.

Such regulation might hark of some sort of stoic defense, but the power of such regulation goes one step beyond.

An individual who is sensitive to the workings of their own emotional, internal environment also caters, and crafts their own influences, and this is where an opinion dungeon can be transformed into an inspiration fountain.

In years prior we only had a few news stations from which to choose and which were tinted with their own editorial flavor. 

But now with the rise of social media feeds, some of these come with curation filters, and while this feature can perhaps easily lead to echo chambers becoming more deeply entrenched it also allows for inspirational material to be sorted for.

In either case the usage of media intake gains the ability to become more extreme.  Whether that is for good or bad all comes down to the person, and how they regulate or don’t regulate the information they receive, and ultimately that comes down to they way a person regulates their own emotions.