Being a high school teacher allows for a glimpse into the evolving lexicon of teenage expression. While I don’t pretend to keep up, nor care to in most cases, they have one particular phrase that I love:
Get out and touch grass, bro.
Put away the devices, get off social media, turn off the news and head outside. Go talk with your neighbours, explore a nearby trail, pick up that hobby that’s been gathering dust—anything that doesn’t keep you glued to the marketed gloom and doom.
While fun to just say, this expression also points to a bigger consideration we often fail to realize in our always connected world and that’s simply that what we need to touch base with reality. The filtered sound bytes and rage filled algorithms promoting a minuscule portion of the population who are stuck in an echo chamber can blind us to the fact that most of the world just wants to live out their days.
On summer days, if you sit out front of your place with a cooler of drinks beside you and invite neighbours to grab a seat, they will. During the winters here, if you’re stuck in the snow, people run out to help you push your vehicle.
Sometimes we need to remember the world isn’t as divided at the personal level. We certainly have our differences, but we rarely engage in tribal warfare over it.
These divisions are games played by psychopathic power mongers who do this for their own gratification and narcissistic sense of self-worth. Please don’t mistake this for hyperbole as Jon Ronson wrote a book called The Psychopath Test, which illustrates those who rise to levels of power (business, government, etc.) tend to be charismatic, egocentric and good at manipulating others.
This is also why I don’t care for which colour or party a politician says they are—they’re all playing the same game and cheating the system just as much as the next person.
While it’s tough to completely ignore what’s happening, we have to keep in mind that our biology was only wired to care for what happened within our tribe. At most, this represents 150 people, which is infinitesimally smaller and less frequent than the entire world all the time. It’s also key to remember our media is only interested in showing extreme outliers and catastrophizing every event because that’s what sells. It wants to convince you this is everyone, everywhere, all the time.
The reality is we need some wilful ignorance to protect our own health.
As I tell my students at the beginning of my ethics course, some people just suck. But if you cling to the belief that everyone sucks, your whole life will be filtered through a negative lens of paranoia, bitterness and anger.
Pick your battles, then go touch grass and enjoy the days.