Fireside Chats With Luzcypher - Taking About Ideas Versus Gossip
There is a big difference in talking about people versus ideas. The latter is where creativity thrives.
An entire industry has grown around talking about people and events. The media prostitutes celebrity like a pimp and we line up to be the next trick.
The amount of attention given to who did what to who is mind boggling and the public laps it up like spilled milk.
The closest I've come to boredom is listening to another story about Trump and what he did or said. Or another story about Russia, Civil War statues, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashians.
And while I'm at it I don't really give a damn who's going to the world series or winning an Oscar either. It just doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Why do so many people find this mundane chatter so interesting?
Are we so uninformed about topics of importance or just scared to take a stand on any issues lest we offend someone in the room?
Religion and politics are two topics we're not supposed to talk about at a party and for good reason, but does that just leave us with celebrity gossip, sports, and trivia to discuss?
“Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
Ideas have the potential to inspire new ideas and fire the synapses in your brain, forging new avenues of thoughts and discussions. New ideas are something this world desperately needs.
So how do we get in the habit of focusing our conversations around ideas?
First, I suppose, it helps to have some ideas worth talking about.
Could that be the reason why so many people talk about other people, because they lack any ideas worthy of discussing?
So instead, they talk about other people and what they are doing or have done. I shudder to think that could be the cause. Perhaps we could elevate the conversation slightly and talk about the new ideas others have had. That would be an improvement.
Mostly I like to talk about ideas and find myself lately with few people to have a good discussion with except for here on Steemit. Whenever I do engage in conversation with most people around me, they seem to gravitate the conversation right back to a gossip-filled topic, like it is almost impossible for them to sustain any conversation that requires them to think, so they just parrot things they have heard on TV or around town.
There's nothing wrong with talking about current events but is that all there is to talk about in this day and age with so many amazing things going on in the world?
What do you think about that?
It is unfortunately a normal norms now to talk about people especially gossip about celebrities because it brings more traffic and money to the TV or even radio show host. I rather spend my time here at steemit reading posts and learning from smark people like you and other great steemians. Call me addicted to steemit or whatevere, I love it here. Upped and following you in order to stay in touch and send in my support.
Also thanks for organising a great contest here which motivated me to write my new post relating to being depressed and how steemit will help.I mentioned you there-feel free to see it and send in your thoughts-more success
Ooooh THANK YOU!! I would love to shoot the shit with you one day I bloody hate small talk, would be interesting to see what we conversed about!
It's really easy to fall into the T.V. / computer / phone games.....getting a steady diet of media with action excitement drama loud boisterous fighting, sex and gun battles. ordinary life can seem......well.....ordinary. Some times it may be a good idea to just "turn it all off for a while"
I have turned off my TV for years now and it has made room for my thoughts to bloom.
I concur! This's the reason I don't watch television, especially the "news." There are better outlets for finding out what's going on in the world without having to watch 10 commercials every 5 minutes. One of those is conversing with your fellow man. Face-to-face conversation is becoming a lost art through face-to-facebook & text messaging.
It it really lost? The internet hasn't been here that long has it? Long enough that people have forgotten how to converse.
Well I grew up with the birth of the internet. Anyone here remember 14.4 modems & bbc chat rooms?...I don't think conversation is lost just yet, but it is moving in that direction. I am a chef at at a fine dining restaurant which has an open kitchen. So, I watch people come to a place which some time ago was used as a meeting place for good food & good conversation. Now, half the people that come into restaurants (especially the children) immediately pull out their phones & stare at them & play with them or set them next to the silverware like it's a part of the dining experience.
...
That or they just bring their portfolios & pitch their business to whoever their trying to schmooze by bringing them to a fancy restaurant with their expense accounts.
yes... now we just go online and find an appropriate meme....haha
Dude, I'm smiling at the idea you've taken a page from the book of FDR. In the immortal words of FDR himself,
*"We have nothing to fear except the fear of constant Kardashian updates trolling our news feeds."
...or something to that effect. I hope Playa Del Carmen is treating you well.
@luzcypher the meme just reinforces how bad politics has become with scripting - and not even with their own words. It's generally the words of "professional" speech writers and PR people.
Authenticity is something in short supply in the day and age of "reality" everything (reality television, virtual reality, etc). That word has been so butchered, it reminds me of something from the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984.
Perhaps the next fireside chat should be a video of you on dtube having the chat in your smoking jacket by a camp fire on the beach. Be well, sir.
I haven't owned a TV for about 6 or 7 years now. There's nothing worth watching and wasting hours of my time on. I have a computer for that...
Ideas tend to be hard to talk about because so many people think they have to solve the problems presented by the ideas instead of just discussing them. The discussion of ideas is where new things come from. Of course, a lot of people fear change, so they don't want to discuss new ideas.
I never thought of it that way. Change is the only constant so it seems funny to me that people fear it.
I think the reason that so many people fear change is because they're afraid that it will be change for the worse for them.
well , I understand what you mean you are right about cheap idols that people taking them up always , because most of people love cheap things , if we think they are 90 percent of people , but it's not the matter , I am always looking at those 10% of the world who don't do the same ....... , and about using an example of someone else , and talking about it , I just use the name and ideas of great people only when the guy that I talk with don't understand me and he don't accept what I say , then I have no way but just saying that look , that guy is also did this , that artist , that football player that political man , like the way you used Eleanor Roosevelt , but I don't mean bad , I mean you do it right , and I do it , ........ and about Justine biber or Kardashian ... these are like talking about hey guys look she has much money and look that child become famous and he have much money , so what ? this is what I call it Absurdity , people live in Absurdity and they scared of those who show their life with a mirror and talk about Absurdity .... ( hey don't play that (for example) queen song , its too absurd and its too sad !! , we need to listen to a happy pop song and bounce we don't have to know that our life is short just like a blink ) and we don't have to try to be good and do good things in this short life ... , about TV , it's a tool like Computer I also don't watch it much but I watch it when it's Morgan Freeman talking about Science and past or future ... black-holes , space (something more than our small planet ) learning ... and also for some movies and shows , not much ... I am more on the internet , doing things that I want to do and I don't let any site move me around many videos and shows , like what youtube do to some people (going in youtube to check a song and going out of it after watching millions of videos and for example people fails) ... but it's also a good tool .
I do think there's room for TV and film in my life, I've seen a lot of really insightful series in my lifetime, especially recently. Don't get the obsession with celebrity at all though. If I'm going to have interest in the lives of complete strangers it's usually people on Youtube (or here) doing things I want to do to get me inspired. But overall, focusing on yourself and the others in your life is the most important thing. We all need to be becoming the best people we can be, not only for ourselves but so we can be of service to others. Great post!
So true... People talk about celebrities like they were family members.... they talk about their dogs like they were their children...about sports as if it mattered at all in the grand scheme of things. We have been so purposefully dumbed down, it's appalling... and I don't mean...others....I know I have been too. I was thinking today about how little I have ever learned about ancient history. It is all so cherry-picked and superficial, not to mention, local, current and WRONG. 2017 is the year that I realized that this dumbing down is all deliberate, and if I am ever to know what's going on....it's up to me to investigate, because everything I've been taught is a lie, and the media is not there to inform but to brainwash and propagandize (is that even a word?) Even as a Christ-follower, I find that you can't question anything....or discuss the deeper things about GOD with people for one minute, before they move into what's going on at their church or what some ecclesiastic celebrity has said or done. And politics on ideology or philosophical levels, forget it. If Trump's name comes up everyone in the circle has to collectively spit... (but funnily enough, everyone fails to see the great evil in the Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas. We're not programmed to notice that.) To the general dumbing down from the TV, the media, the public education system, add the fact that there is some kind of mind control that seems to make everyone so strident in whatever position they hold that it is necessary to just keep your mouth shut or someone will be triggered.
I also cancelled my TV a little over a year ago. It's a critical first step... I subscribe to the newspaper...but I read it with a jaundiced eye...haha... They lie!
Sounds like you are waking up. Good morning!
The dumbing down of people is deliberate, sustained, and by design. It's hard to question authority if you're too dumb to even come up with a question or realize the need for answers.