I recently joined a Whatsapp group. The same group which I had left few years ago for some forgotten-for-good reason. This group has few of my really good friends with whom I have spent good 10 years now. With my plans to move to india in near future, joining the group sounded really exciting. It was almost like a virtual home coming for me. Not that I wasn't in touch with them individually, but I always thought bigger the number, better the fun.
But Haaaaang on... I was completely wrong on this.
This is what happened, I joined this group and said my greetings. Minutes pass. NONE of them replied. Not believing my own eyes, I kept looking at my phone for an acknowledgement. Hours pass. NONE came. Bewildered I was, I kept checking anyone has even read the text, only to see all 20 have read but NONE responded. After feeling the initial phase of butterflies in the stomach which turned into anger, frustration and insult, I collected myself and stopped there before I made any judgements about MY friends.
Thoughts fly left, right and centre.
More than feeling let down by people, I stopped and wondered what could have caused this sort of reaction from people. This event stayed with me for a long time. I refused to give up on it, for one, it was the most unexpected thing, second, I was jobless. LOL. I chewed on this so much that, soon, it was not about the group and my friends anymore. It was about empathy and the dynamics of today's lifestyle around it.
By now, I had done some research around the psychology of SM and its impact on our lives. However I was still struggling in my mind to find an explanation to, according to me, a dangerous stage of (r)evolution. Just when I thought I was straying lost like a headless chicken, and was giving upon this exercise, I found this amazing video by Rabia Kapoor.
Watch the video - https://youtu.be/qHVColObQJs
Rabia talks about how caught up we are in this generation of Internet. I highly recommend you to watch this video if you're reading this post and still not arrived at the conclusion that I've lost it. Being an active Social Media member myself, every word spoken in this video is very very powerful and eye-opening.
Few lines, which resonated with me, quite literally were these -
* "We are living such carefully manipulated virtual lives that, sometimes, we end up envying ourselves."
Yes, this has happened to me lately and I have almost freaked out. This is ... SCARY.
* "We have felt indestructible and vulnerable at the same time."
* "Where you can reveal yourselves completely and still be able to hid."
* "We watched each man becoming an island in so many ways."
* "Stories generate empathy, between any two people who can as different as can be, if one is a story teller and the other is a story told."
This is where she sets the scene for me to find what I was looking for.
* "Stories make us to empathise with people and situations that we never would have been able to otherwise."
* "We live in world where everything moves so fast. People are so busy. You don't get time to tell your stories and worse, you don't get to listen to theirs."
I got my ANSWERS. Somewhere down the line, we have stopped telling our stories and have restricted our conversations to small talks.
* "Law and Rules will hit you from outside, a story gets you from within."
After this video, I rested my case but not the story.
I prayed that our stories don't die out untold.
Tell your story.
But Haaaaang on... I was completely wrong on this.
This is what happened, I joined this group and said my greetings. Minutes pass. NONE of them replied. Not believing my own eyes, I kept looking at my phone for an acknowledgement. Hours pass. NONE came. Bewildered I was, I kept checking anyone has even read the text, only to see all 20 have read but NONE responded. After feeling the initial phase of butterflies in the stomach which turned into anger, frustration and insult, I collected myself and stopped there before I made any judgements about MY friends.
Thoughts fly left, right and centre.
More than feeling let down by people, I stopped and wondered what could have caused this sort of reaction from people. This event stayed with me for a long time. I refused to give up on it, for one, it was the most unexpected thing, second, I was jobless. LOL. I chewed on this so much that, soon, it was not about the group and my friends anymore. It was about empathy and the dynamics of today's lifestyle around it.
By now, I had done some research around the psychology of SM and its impact on our lives. However I was still struggling in my mind to find an explanation to, according to me, a dangerous stage of (r)evolution. Just when I thought I was straying lost like a headless chicken, and was giving upon this exercise, I found this amazing video by Rabia Kapoor.
Watch the video - https://youtu.be/qHVColObQJs
Rabia talks about how caught up we are in this generation of Internet. I highly recommend you to watch this video if you're reading this post and still not arrived at the conclusion that I've lost it. Being an active Social Media member myself, every word spoken in this video is very very powerful and eye-opening.
Few lines, which resonated with me, quite literally were these -
* "We are living such carefully manipulated virtual lives that, sometimes, we end up envying ourselves."
Yes, this has happened to me lately and I have almost freaked out. This is ... SCARY.
* "We have felt indestructible and vulnerable at the same time."
* "Where you can reveal yourselves completely and still be able to hid."
* "We watched each man becoming an island in so many ways."
* "Stories generate empathy, between any two people who can as different as can be, if one is a story teller and the other is a story told."
This is where she sets the scene for me to find what I was looking for.
* "Stories make us to empathise with people and situations that we never would have been able to otherwise."
* "We live in world where everything moves so fast. People are so busy. You don't get time to tell your stories and worse, you don't get to listen to theirs."
I got my ANSWERS. Somewhere down the line, we have stopped telling our stories and have restricted our conversations to small talks.
* "Law and Rules will hit you from outside, a story gets you from within."
After this video, I rested my case but not the story.
I prayed that our stories don't die out untold.
Tell your story.
