New Words in a Deaf World

_{Photo by iam Se7en on Unsplash}

You don't often stop to think how lucky you are, do you? How much there is to gain out there and how fortunate you are to be able to gain it. See, I was contemplating a post about how you should always keep learning and keep looking for things. What things? I don't know, but look to grow always. But then it struck me how many don't actually get that. I realized that there are so many people in this world for whom that message is inapplicable. People who don't actually have the same resources that I do. I don't mean financially, I mean people who have limited to no internet access and very few books. I know, it seems hard to imagine as you sit at your computer or with your smart phone in hand. But you are only here through chance, an errant spark of luck. You could've easily been born on the other side of the world, maybe in a country where the biggest issue is not what should I read today, but am I going to have any food today?
Kinda puts things in perspective when you put it like that.

I might very well write a post about how you should strive to learn and grow. Because most of the people reading this can afford to do that. Most of you have the resources necessary to become better people, to expand your minds. And yet, if you look around at our delightful Western society, most of us don't.

I saw this on Facebook, just as I was getting into this post and it seemed perfect. (I do encourage you to read the full article here.

You're tempted to deny it, I know. But you can't. Why? Because you're not going to give up that time spent on social media to actually try this out. I don't mean you personally. Luckily, the Steemit community has a lot of sharp minds in it and people who tend to think outside the box. But the Steemit community is tiny when compared to the big world out there. And most of the people out there sadly don't see things the same way.
They are not willing to put down Insta to read a book, much less to actively seek growth. Seriously, you look around at our modern world and you can't help but feel disgusted. Disturbed. And just a little more certain that we kinda deserve to be wiped out, you know?
And it's not just kids either. I used to be disturbed by the fact that kids my age don't read the news, don't seek to know what's going on in our world, or that they don't read books for pleasure. But then, that's true of all people, not just the youth. You'll be hard-pressed to find a 40 year old who does that, though they take great pride in scolding today's youth. But the truth is that they too have been seized by social media, the ever appealing black mirror.
Really, we could use our technology to do extraordinary things and yet we use it to view cat memes and put on dog ears. Dog ears for fucking out loud!
And then we wonder why aliens don't want anything to do with us...Could it be that they're past the dog ears?

_source

So, I was going to tell you how I learned a new word.

Adiaphorous.

Know what it means? Yeah well, I didn't either.

adiaphorous (adj.)

"indifferent, non-essential, morally neither right nor wrong," 1630s, from Greek adiaphoros "not different; indifferent," from a- "not" (see a- (3)) + diaphoros "different."

It's truly a charming word, isn't it? It seems so still to me, somehow. Anyway, I wouldn't have found out about it myself, but I've been listening to a lot of French music and I got obsessed with the word 'adieu' and how it literally means 'a dieu' – to God, or may God be with you. Then, I read that 'goodbye' is the shortened form of God be with ye. And then, I found this word in the suggestions on the side – adiaphorous. See, learning is easy. And it's natural, it's the most natural thing in the world because we as humans are built to learn.

It seems all the more shameful that we don't. That we spend our time checking to see what others are doing on social media or binging Netflix. The thing is, neither of those things is in itself harmful. Amazing trains of thought can start by watching a Netflix movie or checking your Twitter feed. But you need to allow them to, you need to be inclined to think for yourself. It is your duty because you have all the resources available. You're presented with all this information and you just spit on it.

Nothing in itself (or rather very few things) is actually harmful, what truly matters is what we do with it. And it seems we so often choose to do nothing with all the information presented to us.

Thank you for reading,