Morning News and Freedom
Its a nice morning, there is a long awaited chill in the air, mischievous clouds have scattered themselves over the sky which has finally decided to drape itself in a shade of mild blue, indicating the much anticipated arrival of winter over the desert. The sunrays get reflected from the buildings across into the living room, giving a charming glow to the space, unlike the regular glares which are the only other constant contrast. There is a slight breeze pacing about like a light music, getting the greenery at my patio to dance in slow motion. So grateful to nature for doing its bit.
When it comes to the people, things are much the same, except of course, the seasons magic has brought some lightness to everyones daily life, almost as though viewing through a cooler shade of protective glasses. Everyone needs that a bit of cool. However the legion of cars roar away filling my room with impatient honks, and this constance of material chase is inevitable in this part of the world. To let nature in, i have to let the noise in. Right there is a part of my freedom I cannot challenge to fight for. I chose to let the door open and sat down to write a bit after my morning tea and news.
My news paper boy came by the other day to renew subscription and made me think about the various news mediums and its place in my life. I told him i need to think, and he is due to visit in a weeks time.The paper comes in before 4.00 a.m, thats pretty good work which means I can never be early for news in the morning. I observed that this wanting to stay abreast with world around, has given me more than I bargained for. To clarify, there are at least 40 sheets of paper on the door every morning, the main set consisting of daily news on world terrorism, natural calamity, non productive statistics, that dedicated propaganda pieces on the development, the silly awards that are thrown around and the like. Then there are the supplements each for sports, entertainment, editorial pieces, career, economy and finance. In addition there are promotional sheets, of fast food joints, health centers, retail shops, watches, electronics and the whole set. I dont read much of it. The career part is mostly repititive, and the editorial is a cut and paste from news papers over the world. The entertainment supplement has a dosage of low subjects ranging from dresses to who said what on twitter to reviews written by others. Out of the 365 days I may have 5 days when an offer on the print looks alluring enough to check out. In these 5 cases, none are drawn to me due to necessity.
Its come to this, that even if you cut off yourself from hard prints , there is no hiding from the social media phenomena. With all its amazing advantages of connecting people with people for learning and betterment to its enormous ill effects due to sheer reach and unfiltered expression.
Freedom is our birthright, but with the power to free expression there is a responsibility to be responsible. Any one who has seen the marvel movies will have heard this. And if people are not ready to handle responsibility then there is no point to the freedom, expression or power. But with social media we do have the ability to customize our virtual world. I can access fresh material online to follow news that matter to me and have multiple online options to in case of further reading. I have to say that I do not see the need for wasting so much paper on my door for no reason just to be thrown away by the end of the week. Especially since, I choose to believe that climate change is a true fact, irrespective of whether its due to human doing or due to natural progression of events or a combination of both. I believe that right and only course, to try to limit ourselves from exploiting nature. While fully aware that I may not live to gain from my choices on the climate front in their lifetime, I feel my actions will impact the children of tomorrow the planet, its best to die knowing I tried than otherwise.
Looking further over at the television media, its agenda is also in congruence with that or the others. The format of news value over content quality, influence over awareness. This epidemic of quantity over quality is encircling most aspects of life on planet. Imagine if the media felt the responsibility to promote some good will as well on a regular basis and balance the time on futile daily debates, misinterpretations conclusions and speculations, there by creating a more wholistic approach to reporting, how better it could be. Not saying to mask the truth or to denounce the reality. But when giving us a horrid account over and over of an incident, try and bring one good will news from the country at least to keep our spirits from diminishing. I am sure even with millions of people, we are not so downtrodden that its impossible to get a story of hope. When calling for revolution, do acknowledge the importance to tell stories of tolerance as well. Ahh if only things were ever in simple enough as black and white.
Even with all the grey areas, there is no need to try strenuously suppress and shrink the space for good news and have to wait for a calamity of epic proportions to showcase humanity. And all this sold off as means of freedom expression and truth. We cant pretend to be oblivious to the fact that, selective representations of these ideologies not only poses a huge threat to the smooth functioning of a society but also to its sensibility. Therefore this is not a topic of debate anymore and is one that needs to go into everyones own inner self.
Not that every news paper or channel around is at the same level of throwing trash, however the ones from India particularly, are a bunch of negativity mongers trying to use controversy as a theme on the ever increasing population to showcase numbers and popularity. The fact is in a diversified country like india with as many people as there is, its not difficult divide people to get numbers.
Romanticising freedom was a thing of the past, today we already understand freedom, but we need to realize that the equation has changed what with the various new channels of expression and technology being available. We must know that freedom alone simply cannot solve over problems. Forming opinion to freely expressing it is one thing and weighing in our opinions to deciding on when to express it another thing and the latter makes for a more compelling use of the freedom.
Think about this, when we have no control on the rate at which we are increasingly inhabiting the earth with our diverse selves, without a common and cooperative goal, try to control nature than control our unsustainable encroachment and demands by overpopulating earth, we are only rapidly digging our own graves to a faster extinction.From this chaos its not easy to create the thousand different utopias that are being fought for today. Logically mass destruction or total collapse is only a matter of time.
Freedom needs a new definition, freedom of clean space, air and water, freedom from the shackles of money mindedness and intolerance, freedom from demands based on wants and not needs. Let us all stop differentiating humans as haves and have nots but as alive or lifeless, because its unobjectionably true that in the end, all that matters is how you lived and what you lived for.
If freedom is indeed my birthright, then i should accept it and take it upon myself to enable myself to be free. In the current context I feel either I can always be in search of freedom by allowing myself to be enslaved by everything around that tries to sell me what they want to sell or be really free and not succumb to being a sell out to ideas that I don't need.
So to make the circle complete I have decided to not renew the news paper subscription.
When it comes to the people, things are much the same, except of course, the seasons magic has brought some lightness to everyones daily life, almost as though viewing through a cooler shade of protective glasses. Everyone needs that a bit of cool. However the legion of cars roar away filling my room with impatient honks, and this constance of material chase is inevitable in this part of the world. To let nature in, i have to let the noise in. Right there is a part of my freedom I cannot challenge to fight for. I chose to let the door open and sat down to write a bit after my morning tea and news.
My news paper boy came by the other day to renew subscription and made me think about the various news mediums and its place in my life. I told him i need to think, and he is due to visit in a weeks time.The paper comes in before 4.00 a.m, thats pretty good work which means I can never be early for news in the morning. I observed that this wanting to stay abreast with world around, has given me more than I bargained for. To clarify, there are at least 40 sheets of paper on the door every morning, the main set consisting of daily news on world terrorism, natural calamity, non productive statistics, that dedicated propaganda pieces on the development, the silly awards that are thrown around and the like. Then there are the supplements each for sports, entertainment, editorial pieces, career, economy and finance. In addition there are promotional sheets, of fast food joints, health centers, retail shops, watches, electronics and the whole set. I dont read much of it. The career part is mostly repititive, and the editorial is a cut and paste from news papers over the world. The entertainment supplement has a dosage of low subjects ranging from dresses to who said what on twitter to reviews written by others. Out of the 365 days I may have 5 days when an offer on the print looks alluring enough to check out. In these 5 cases, none are drawn to me due to necessity.
Its come to this, that even if you cut off yourself from hard prints , there is no hiding from the social media phenomena. With all its amazing advantages of connecting people with people for learning and betterment to its enormous ill effects due to sheer reach and unfiltered expression.
Freedom is our birthright, but with the power to free expression there is a responsibility to be responsible. Any one who has seen the marvel movies will have heard this. And if people are not ready to handle responsibility then there is no point to the freedom, expression or power. But with social media we do have the ability to customize our virtual world. I can access fresh material online to follow news that matter to me and have multiple online options to in case of further reading. I have to say that I do not see the need for wasting so much paper on my door for no reason just to be thrown away by the end of the week. Especially since, I choose to believe that climate change is a true fact, irrespective of whether its due to human doing or due to natural progression of events or a combination of both. I believe that right and only course, to try to limit ourselves from exploiting nature. While fully aware that I may not live to gain from my choices on the climate front in their lifetime, I feel my actions will impact the children of tomorrow the planet, its best to die knowing I tried than otherwise.
Looking further over at the television media, its agenda is also in congruence with that or the others. The format of news value over content quality, influence over awareness. This epidemic of quantity over quality is encircling most aspects of life on planet. Imagine if the media felt the responsibility to promote some good will as well on a regular basis and balance the time on futile daily debates, misinterpretations conclusions and speculations, there by creating a more wholistic approach to reporting, how better it could be. Not saying to mask the truth or to denounce the reality. But when giving us a horrid account over and over of an incident, try and bring one good will news from the country at least to keep our spirits from diminishing. I am sure even with millions of people, we are not so downtrodden that its impossible to get a story of hope. When calling for revolution, do acknowledge the importance to tell stories of tolerance as well. Ahh if only things were ever in simple enough as black and white.
Even with all the grey areas, there is no need to try strenuously suppress and shrink the space for good news and have to wait for a calamity of epic proportions to showcase humanity. And all this sold off as means of freedom expression and truth. We cant pretend to be oblivious to the fact that, selective representations of these ideologies not only poses a huge threat to the smooth functioning of a society but also to its sensibility. Therefore this is not a topic of debate anymore and is one that needs to go into everyones own inner self.
Not that every news paper or channel around is at the same level of throwing trash, however the ones from India particularly, are a bunch of negativity mongers trying to use controversy as a theme on the ever increasing population to showcase numbers and popularity. The fact is in a diversified country like india with as many people as there is, its not difficult divide people to get numbers.
Romanticising freedom was a thing of the past, today we already understand freedom, but we need to realize that the equation has changed what with the various new channels of expression and technology being available. We must know that freedom alone simply cannot solve over problems. Forming opinion to freely expressing it is one thing and weighing in our opinions to deciding on when to express it another thing and the latter makes for a more compelling use of the freedom.
Think about this, when we have no control on the rate at which we are increasingly inhabiting the earth with our diverse selves, without a common and cooperative goal, try to control nature than control our unsustainable encroachment and demands by overpopulating earth, we are only rapidly digging our own graves to a faster extinction.From this chaos its not easy to create the thousand different utopias that are being fought for today. Logically mass destruction or total collapse is only a matter of time.
Freedom needs a new definition, freedom of clean space, air and water, freedom from the shackles of money mindedness and intolerance, freedom from demands based on wants and not needs. Let us all stop differentiating humans as haves and have nots but as alive or lifeless, because its unobjectionably true that in the end, all that matters is how you lived and what you lived for.
If freedom is indeed my birthright, then i should accept it and take it upon myself to enable myself to be free. In the current context I feel either I can always be in search of freedom by allowing myself to be enslaved by everything around that tries to sell me what they want to sell or be really free and not succumb to being a sell out to ideas that I don't need.
So to make the circle complete I have decided to not renew the news paper subscription.
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