Let’s get one thing off the docket first: I am at a great crossroads in my life, and I think that most of us are in that same boat.
Some of you may have seen the breakdown that ensued on social media. Others could have noticed that all YouTube videos were pulled down with fingers of the great depression. In that moment, I was scared to be nothing – and I was scared to be something. That’s fucking vague. Let me elaborate.
This podcast was started for the simple purpose of harboring healthy discourse, hence the name Discoursers. I say ‘harbor’ because the current state of discourse among US citizens is atrocious. We are at each other’s throats consistently. Innocuous and benign posts on a YouTube video, or Facebook post, are attacked viciously. One slip of a single word can send the whirlwind of the offended and attention seeking. It’s as if we are all locked into a fight-or-flight mentality, and fight seems to the default response. I want you notice one thing about this so far: I used ‘we’.
Though fight is a standard response online, in life the opposite is mostly true. Introversion is on the rise. Can you blame those who choose the introverted path? No, they are responding on a biological impulse to avoid danger. Outside their doors are riots and heatwaves; and the archvillain known as COVID-19. We are doomed.
“Please stay indoors while we maintain order! You need saving from yourself!”
– Powers That Be
We’re not doomed (he said calmly freaking out). Walk outside, talk to your neighbor. Go for coffee with a friend. Lay on the grass in a park. Spark up a conversation with a person that is not your own race. Within a tiny fraction of reaching 100%, all of these things will go well. The sun is still shining outside (granted, it is hot as Satan’s balls), and people are still people. They may be a doctor or janitor, Indonesian or Russian, light or dark skinned… but we all want the exact same thing: A healthy and fun conversation of sharing ideas, regardless of how simple they may seem.
That’s the point. That’s always been the point. Our conversations, whether with people or media (a one-way conversation), are how we create ourselves. They’re how we’ve created the great monuments and moments of human history: Democracies, Tesla Coils, Revolutions, Social Media, the Kardashian Clan. Okay, the last one may not even be in the top 50,000 list of human accomplishment… my mistake. Back to the main gig.
Sharing is caring, folks. The world is a simple place that can be fixed with a simple solution. Listen before you talk. Talk about what you just listened to, while the other person listens.
Have good discourse.
Discoursers Podcast 