versus fast

When I’m unhappy, which seems to be a lot during covid, I find this embarrassing habit in me. I seek out conflict. Not with other people, in that regard I’m extremely conflict averse. But I seek out conflict in the media I consume. I’ve always been a huge consumer of youtube. All. kinds. of. shit. Everything from biographies about obscure history, to women’s Mongolian judo, to absolute garbage reality tv fights shit.

But one thing I’ve noticed is that so much of the world and media is moving towards conflict for entertainment. Some of that is just how the brain works. Nobody wants to watch a show about people moving into a new house and everything goes fine. But if theres a ghost in the house? Awesome.

But I want to draw a distinction between fictional conflict and the true conflict.

Fictional conflict to me has some kind of value. But most of the real world conflict based media we consume is just trash. WATCH THIS PERSON GET EXPOSED< WATCH THIS PERSON GET HUMBLED WATCH THIS PERSON DESTROY THIS OR THAT.

Those are the kind of youtube headlines that sell right now. And as I write that out, I realize it smacks of an audience that is simultaneously out of control and feels powerless.

When I am unhappy, at the very moment I need positive voices the most, I am most inclined to listen to assholes, know it alls, and bullies.

I don’t have enough insight to understand why I do this, or what benefit I get from it. Maybe its simple escapism, maybe seeing someone else suffer or fight back makes you feel strong, maybe it just fires up the adrenaline.

But I do believe that long term, as a life style, its not good for you.

Which is weird, because generally I don’t mind heat. In comedy, I secretly relish being heckled. I train combat sports. There is a part of me that is always aware that people in life will misbehave, and you need to be ready.

But I think theres a difference between the occasional dust up, and the saturation of your brain with squabbles with no winner or loser, just noise and low grade unkindness.

One of my ambitions for the rest of my life is to live in a kinder world. And I think that starts with me. Being kind doesn’t mean being a pussy, but it also means that if you have a choice, to choose the good.

I saw a saying on the back of a dumpster today and it said “no one became wise by accident”. Ditto.

So for a while, I am endeavoring to avoid all media that is based on making one side bad so the other side can be good. I’m still gonna watch tv and movies and shit, but just going to limit myself from the sad slow motion bar fight of most media and news these days. I’m calling it a versus fast.

We need to fight, but fight the right battles.

Big love to all of y’all.