One of the most beautiful building blocks of human existence are the acts of randomness of experience tat are constantly injected into our world, the spilled coffee, the unexpected laughter of a child, or the touch of a hand that leads to a marriage - as was the case that led to my own. Randomness is vital for our development as it forces us to pay attention to what we wouldn't otherwise and can cause profound changes in who we are. Random can introduce difficulty and give us a chance to grow stronger.
In my view, it is this randomness of experience that directs us into unknowns and opens us to potential that we would not have had otherwise. And while it can be in the negative, the overcoming can drive us into generating positive from it.
From the first moment of our life, randomness is the major influence as we do not choose our parents, our skin, nationality, personality, economic availability or a myriad other factors that influence the course we will take. We are mostly, passengers in a random world.
And, we do not like it.
So, we seek out ways to take control and over the last generation or two, digital experience has become a major force in our development. We box ourselves into the completely engineered gaming experience of known paths and purpose, spaces where there is literally, no random. It is predictable.
While there can be benefits to this, we have essentially created safe zones, free of randomness which are the antithesis of evolution, the chaotic force of nature with near unlimited facets combining in near unlimited ways to move our universe forward. But, the universe is too large to deal with here and now perhaps.
What I was thinking about during a client session today were the skills that lead us through life and with the client we were talking about social skills. Imagine having 100 single men and a 100 single women in a bar. 50 of the men are socially adept, 50 are not. What are the results, do you think? If as an independent evaluator of humans, which will make better matches with the women and will there be differences across other factors that might matter, such as intelligence, looks, personality etc?
I think a lot of the skills that are valuable to us as humans for both development and socialization are learned through the random encounters through life that challenge us, frustrate us, make us smile and cry. We learn how to be human through our experiences and that is one filled with randomization of process and outcomes that develop our sense and intuition for patience and fairness, preference and compassion.
What happens when this randomization is replaced by engineered worlds with known purpose and a narrow range of skills that are applicable across all environments? While there can be some addition to the skill toolkit, what is unknowingly missing? I mentioned compassion a few sentences ago, can one truly learn it without having fully experienced the conditions personally that may be the catalyst for it in another? How many of these skills need to be learned through demonstration, like ancient stories passed down across millennia.
I have found through talking to many millenials that they constantly feel threatened and under attack, many of them are depressed despite enjoying some of the best conditions of life humanity as a whole has ever seen. I question whether the pressure is high or, that they are missing the fundamental skills that were learned by earlier generations in childhood, the teasing, the friendships, the have your back in thick or thin and the randomized events that lead a young life into and out of all kinds of situations.
These days, people engineer their experience to take a picture of it for Instagram.
I feel like we are caging ourselves in a digital box of narrow experience and fooling ourselves into believing that it is a true representation of experience, that it is enough stimulus for life as a human. And without the experience of alternatives, we do not know what we are missing, we do not have the randomness of life to slap us awake for a moment and say,
"hey, there is more to life, don't stop here..."
And instead, when we do get the jolt of reality, we turn away, we blame it for upsetting our minds and emotions and banish it away through violent acts or, acts of avoidance. Rather than learn to deal with life, we sink ourselves further into our digital cages and pretend it is all we need.
And for a time, it is.
I wonder what happens when people realize they lack intimacy, but haven't the skills to generate it in a healthy manner. I wonder what happens to the compassion in people when they fall in and out of dysfunctional relationships. I wonder what happens to the children born to parents who are missing the skills of humanity that raise strong, loving and passionate adults.
I feel we are increasingly living in a world of robots coded by engineered experience to be predictable, controlled and devoid of the ability to cope with the random nature of life. A pack of wild wolves, domesticated and bred for subservience. To serve what end is the question.
We build our own cage and lock ourselves in. I hope we haven't lost the key.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
Hi. Sorry if this seem offensive but I'm just curious. Is your daughter your biological daughter? Did anyone ever accuse you of kidnapping her when you're out with her alone without her mother as she is on the whiter end of the color spectrum? Thanks!
Hahaha. Not yet, but I expect that when I take her for lunch as a sixteen year old, things might change. This was the case for my mother and her sons, as she was a blue-eyed blonde - and we aren't.
I also think my daughter (who looks like me) will be privy to some interesting conversations where people will not pick her to be the child of a colored immigrant.
I am looking forward to it. I was actually going to write something about this the other day.
Thank you for being such a good sport! Do write about this topic. It is very interesting to me. Now I understand, your daughter is a quarter Asian and three quarters Caucasian.
My uncle married a Caucasian lady and their children have brown eyes and hairs so he did not get into such trouble. Someone I know in the States however was queried mostly by elderly people as his son was too Caucasian looking.
!ENGAGE 50
@wittywheat you have received
50 ENGAGEfrom @tarazkp!View and trade the tokens on Steem Engine.
Ok, boomer.
Ok, Google ;D
The last couple of years of my teaching career, cyber bullying became such a big thing that it had to be addressed district wide. Since kids could hide behind a computer screen, they felt as though they could say whatever popped into their head. The lack of face to face interaction is crippling our youth's ability to interact socially.
Kids now a days don't even know how to properly greet someone. Social skills have been eroded to the point where handshakes and making eye-contact with the person you are talking to are no longer practiced behaviors.
As parents, one needs to monitor the amount of time kids spend on all of the gadgets, or their lack of supervision will come back to haunt them!!
Adults the same.
Watch fifteen year olds interact together, and they look autistic.
Mine is only 3, but there is almost zero screen time yet and what there is, is severely restricted and provided. You re what you eat, and unfortunately people feed their children shit food and shit information - yet expect them to grow to be well-rounded and balanced adults.
When our children were growing up the big concern was TV time. We limited the time they would spend in front of the boob tube to about an hour a day. They were not even exposed to TV until they were almost four years old.
Gadgets get parents off of the hook. If the kids are occupied and not disrupting their parents everything is good in the parents eyes.
What a shame.
@tarazkp thankyou very much for the engage tokens, greatly appreciated.
I have copied and pasted the next few lines from a reply #farm-mom sent to @galenkp concerning engage tokens and steem-engine in general.
Thanks for the engage tokens my friend. thebigsweed and I are still new at the steem-engine gig.
I understand that many of the tokens can be given to others, it's just a matter of us learning how to operate the system. I have been trying to stake some beer tokens for the last several weeks with no success. We have learned so much and this is something we WILL LEARN, it just may take a little time.
Enjoy your weekend!
TV is the devil, especially these days as anytihng that could be of some quality is on pay channels. All that is left on the free to air is what is given away freely by corporations - nothing good. :D
Steem-engine.com for the staking, but to distribute most tokens you need to have enough staked first. For engagement, it is 1000 tokens.
Thanks for the info, will delve into steem-engine when we get back home.
!ENGAGE 30
forgot to add this :)
@thebigsweed you have received
30 ENGAGEfrom @tarazkp!View and trade the tokens on Steem Engine.
Hey I feel this so much man great post!!!!!! im 27 and im grateful that there wasn't an ipad or youtube when I was growing up. I saw my niece the other day on her ipad watching another kid having fun and that just confused me like it doesn't make sense. this world of technology has done good things but also has caused many issues you cant even ask for a girls number no more she would rather you have her Instagram or snapchat so you can see everything that's going on in this world its ridiculous but hey maybe im just getting old
People watching others play games that they are quite capable of playing themselves. It is weird.
I don't think it is an age thing, it is an experience thing. People seem to have forgotten that socializing can be enjoyable :)
I totally agree with you!!
I was out with some friends over the weekend and they kept making a fuss about us taking picture and videos for the "gram".
We legit were NOT having fun because rather than have a decent conversation we spent every second searching for the best angles...
So yeah, we def just cage ourselves trying to impress a lot of people who don't even care...
I don't mind people wanting a good photo (as I am a hobby photographer) but most of what people take isn't made to actually be a good photo. Funny how much of our life these days is trying to perform for others .
As technology and digitalization expanding people become addicted of it social media and other digital networks and tools are helpful to learn and communicate but we should not depend upon it we must used digital tools as we need it Addiction is not good
Over children spending hours online to watch movies and songs on YouTube playing games online it's not good for them to waste there useful time we as humans must meet or interact with each others without any digital interaction
Necessary for parents to enlighten their kids so they don't get sucked in. I had thought you'd refer more to your daughter on the article.
All the skills digitization takes from us...best to become hybrids than lose them all
Infobesity and Infoxication perhaps?
No, i don't think so. Most of them seemingly stay narrow on their information and avoid psychological conflicts.