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FOMO-LAND
Friday Dec. 9, 2016
Taking anything – person, ‘supposed fact’ – for granted, dangerous at worst, potentially embarrassing/silly at best.
So normal, so average, so conventional. Making matters worse, we have FOMO – fear of missing out.
Enter a legion of social media phenomena, news feeds, 24/7 TV news – renders ink-on-paper news I love obsolete; It’s disappearing at a rate that would make spotted owls, polar bears and glaciers blink.
So much, so fast, so often fake or incomplete, so incompletely reported … but that doesn’t seem to matter. Far removed from fact-based, everyone is chasing the news-caboose train leaving town, aching to retweet the latest anything hinting at being new, trending or worth a few moments of attention. Filter duplication, strain away advertising, stroke out near-facts, non-facts and completely debunked silliness to get Swiss-cheese view – like newspapers with advertising clipped out. Gutted, barely a skeleton remains.
Crazy world of now, new and ‘the future’. FOMO is neither cause or effect – but clearly in the middle of the mix. I try staying current on local/industry news – essential to my work, essential to my feeling of ‘having a sense of what is going on around me, affecting me – explaining my life, location and liberty’. I try to stay current on ‘interesting new things’, clever ideas and thoughtful analysis – which makes me a new junkie, which makes me look like and sometimes feel like the worst imaginable FOMO.
Necessary to wade through junk to find treasure, dig through tons of ‘ORE’ to find aurous ‘AU’. Still ‘gold in them thar hills’; less digging, but more deleting than ever. High time-cost to find gold in FOMO land.
Did I miss anything …?
Reader feedback:
SIMPLIFY IT
Easier said than done for a society burdened with stuff. Investments, big houses and mortgages. A real time pipeline to the rest of the world where everything in other countries seems to affect us be it their elections or bank failures. Here in Mexico people have very little, and not much to worry about either. A bank going under in Italy doesn’t matter. Life is simpler without all the trappings. It boils down to family, friends and the immediate community. For many it’s hard and could use improvement with running water and electricity which we take for granted, but they can and do get by without it, with dignity. A lesson for us all, DM, Puerto Angel, Oaxaca, Mexico
SHOUT OUT
Yours is an incredible story, Mark, when you realize your immense readership would have been denied access to the words, wisdom, and humor of your Musings without your oh-so-difficult, but amazingly correct, decision. Thank you, BR, Calgary, AB
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