On my way to Myrtle Beach for a conference on Wednesday I listened to an NPR interview about how smart businesses are ridding themselves of the silo approach and thought, "Hm...isn't that what I'm really trying to do with SAGE Acts?" Yeah, smart business me!! The interviewee went on to discuss the fact that neither presidential candidate has addressed the real threat to American jobs--the digital age. Robots.
So, here we are caught between technological advancements on one hand, and the need to acknowledge, and appreciate, our diverse humanity by intentionally connecting in an emotional, physical, and intellectual way on the other.
As I wandered from my hotel room down to the beach for a pre-dinner walk these were the things on my mind. Then, as I began to walk I started in with my usual friendly head bobs, "hellos," and smiles at passers-by. Something alarming was happening. I passed probably 60-70 people on my walk and barely any of them made contact with me. Even those I said hello to mostly acted like nothing was said, or looked down at their feet, or straight ahead, and kept on truckin'. Now, perhaps this idea of connection was just really on my mind, but as I pondered the folks who did interact with me, I noticed that they were either my age (middle-aged) or older. There is no paucity of research out there about the cell phone/Facebook generation, so if you want to look at serious numbers and trends, you can, but this is the first time I had what seemed pretty solid anecdotal evidence that we're losing our connection muscles. Perhaps even our DESIRE to connect muscles. Disturbed, I went back to my room and binge watched--well, I'd rather not say.
The next morning Facebook was on my mind. Specifically, how if we don't agree with what someone is saying on Facebook we can just unfollow or unfriend them. We don't have to connect, or engage in confrontation, if we don't want to. Or, we can be combative, drop our word bombs, THEN delete the offender. In other words we no longer have to engage in actual discourse, which to do effectively, requires....CONNECTION and respect for the experiences and opinions of others. We're in a national moment where the politics of Facebook are writ large, and the lack of respect for difference and unique human experience is evident and destructive.
The take away from my brain ramblings? A reminder that no matter what someone thinks, how their values differ from mine, what their experiences or demographic, each of us has at least one redeeming quality. Maybe we can intentionally engage in the radical act of seeing it. Which would, of course, require us to look at each other.
