Comfort

Amidst the state of chaos

It all started — of all things — from a simple tweet.

Seems like a genuine and harmless question, right? It is, but the replies to that tweet are anything but.

People are tired, sad, angry, weary, and overall not in a good place. I can’t blame them for that. The world just feels like it’s in chaos, everything is spiraling out of control and we’re all helpless to it. Global temperature is rising, the political landscape is getting more polarized, and everyday we’re faced with constant streams of negative news that skews our perception/opinion towards the world.

This, in turn, breeds contempt, distrust, and hatred amongst people. All of this is also exacerbated by social media platforms that rewards engagement over genuine interaction, information, and content. If the replies to Elmo’s tweet is anything to go by, is that we all just want to be able to rest our head down, be comfortable for a moment, and be listened/understood to. But in this day and age, we can’t always afford that. We feel the constant need to look over our back, to be on alert, to question everyone’s intent, and to have a retort to every statement.

With all of that, it’s easier now to misunderstood and/or misinterpret someone’s intention because we are now wired by our cognitive bias that everyone is out there to get us. There are little discourse going on, and almost no nuance anymore. It’s us versus them, left or right, my way or the highway. Constant judgement of differing opinion or outlook, and you are more likely to be ridiculed if you’re somehow “different” than others.

In a world full of hatred and judgement, it seems very hard to be kind and genuine to each other. But maybe if we all take a little step back, take a good look of the world, maybe there are more to life than just the hopelessness and dooms of politics. Maybe, just maybe, if we could all put aside our differences and realize that none of it really matters, maybe we could all start interacting with and understand each other again. If we all could take a moment to listen and understand, rather than listening to reply, maybe we could all be more sympathetic towards each other, because regardless of our differences, we’re all still the same.

We’re just human after all.