InternationalNote to self
Published: Saturday September 20, 2008
Time continues to speed up, perhaps just for me, but I hear it from others too. There's never enough time to do all the things we have to do and want to do. There's never enough time to keep ourselves with the news of the day, process the hundreds of e-mails that come through, look at the websites that attract us, watch the shows we want to watch, and hear the radio stations we want to hear. Let's not forget those nasty text messages. There seems to be too much happening around us in the information age, and that makes each moment more valuable. This stimulus overload should also make us question where all this information is coming from and what motivates those who send it to us or make it available to us. News channels want to make you continue watching, and there is always a natural reaction we'll have to someone else's action of a text message, phone call, or e-mail. All this should make us wonder what we should be listening to and really hearing, which messages are important to understand, why these messages are being communicated to us, what is the real news in the overwhelming amount of information we're being barraged with.
Like others, I want to know. I am interested in what's happening in my community, be it the Armenian community, the community of North Hollywood, Southern California, Central California, the United States, the Republic of Armenia, and the global community. All the information about these areas of interest come into my world via that cell phone that I can't seem to not be attached with. I have this growing desire to check it between a shower and shave to see if something important has come through voice mail, text message, or e-mail. The rest of the information we proactively seek by engaging in Internet chat, browsing favorite websites, turning on the dozen English-language news channels from the United States and Armenia or other English-language services like Iran's Press TV. Television station everywhere, newspapers, and almost anyone, anywhere, has access to using a satellite now, and they're up there in orbit allowing anyone, anywhere - organizations, individuals, governments, businesses, religions, churches, charities, con artists, cults, nationalists, bigots, and truly good and truly evil people - to send you messages, news, entertainment that will hold on to your focus, and information, be it true or false. Every human can be a broadcaster now, broadcasting to each other a majority of the 60,000 thoughts scientists say each human has during the course of the day.
Messages from a megachurch
One of the messages that I have chosen to regard as important and that I look forward to hearing every day comes through an e-mail list that I've subscribed to. The e-mails come from a Christian preacher in Houston. It seems a bit odd to admit, but these daily messages about God, spirituality, and how to be a better human and Christian come not from my church but some random megachurch (megabusiness) that uses the former Houston Rockets' basketball arena to assemble 14,000 congregants at a time and preach the word of God.
What I read and save in a special designated file in my e-mail are daily messages - about three to four paragraphs with scriptural references - about how to live life, helping others, having hope, dreaming about what's possible, being grateful, and other positive and Christian ideas to entertain and think about as one of the 60,000 thoughts that pass through our mind. Whether you believe in the Son of God or God, whether you're a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, an agnostic, or an atheist, these types of thoughts empower you as a human, keep you aware of the forces that rule your interactions, keep you from falling into the natural human state of misery, dissatisfaction, and creating misery, a state that all religions seem to agree is the premise of human beings. But even though that may be our natural and default state, it doesn't have to be who we are. Messages of hope and holiness help keep us on the right track in how we think about ourselves and others, how we relate to others and the world, and how we choose what's important in the barrage of information hitting us every waking hour.
Being born to a people that boasts about being the first Christian nation, being brought up in the Armenian Apostolic Church and having it as my primary connection to spirituality, I consider myself a Christian. However, the critical thinking skills we are taught in school prompt me to also read other spiritual and religious teachings as I search for answers about why I exist. If our natural human state is being miserable, unsatisfied, never being satiated or having enough, then my natural state is also one of not being satisfied with what I have learned or know about what has happened to me and my people. I ask questions about the curses and unfortunate things that have happened to us, like Genocide, civil war, and manmade or natural disasters I have witnessed from television. I ask why these events happen, what they really mean, and what I should make of or think about these personal and global events. I wonder about existential mysteries as much as why I'm bombarded with the messages I'm receiving in this information age. I wonder about meaning while I wander through facts, figures, opinions, and ideas, also somewhat cautiously asking what the people sending me the information expect me to do about the information. Do they just want me to keep tuning in, because an even more sensational story is coming up? Do they want me to buy more, save money by buying more things I don't need because these things I'm told I must have are on sale? Do they want me to vote for their party or not vote at all; after all, how functional is any democracy in the world, especially one that is financed by big business and doesn't give voters a real choice? Do these messages and their messengers want me to support more military action to grow our economy or to invest in stocks, donate money, be more passive, buy more insurance, ask my doctor about medications that will make me look like the happy, middle-aged man who looks like a million bucks in advertisements? Why is everyone telling me all these things and how am I supposed to react to all this? Or is the information age a tool to make us simply overwhelmed and too entertained to even care and do something about our world?
