#106. Coexistence

We live in the age of information. And we share and have more information about ourselves and others in our lives, even outside of it.

But is that all for good? Today, we dissect this age by taking a ride through the past and understanding how it has changed. We will also look at why we find it so hard to coexist in the world with so many tools around us that claim to make coexistence easier.

Let’s look at this intricate facet of life.

So little is actually worthy of belief or disbelief. Better to strive to coexist than seek to disapprove.
— David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Today, I want to take all of us on a journey across time. This is going to be really fun, especially for all the 90’s babies out there.

Let’s go back and imagine our relationships with a friend from childhood. More than likely, the friend would have either been living close to us, part of the same class we studied in or maybe the child of our parents’ friends. Regardless of who they were, I am sure the recollection of that relationship brings a smile to our faces no matter when we think about it.

All of us would remember these fond memories in a few images, which would either be on school playgrounds, randomly running around in the locality or visits to each others’ homes. There would be phone calls and text messaging, but with obvious limits, given that using communication services had real monetary impacts on our parents.

Let’s zoom ahead a few years. We had obviously grown up a bit, and had more to do in our lives than the earlier, play-friendly years of our lives. Some of us had received our first cell phones and computers with internet connections. We had bulk messaging packs & cheaper phone calls. This period was where social media was in its budding stages. Putting a text based “status” to inform everyone around us of what we were thinking, doing or experiencing at any time was starting to become the “in thing”.

Let’s fast forward to today. We have real jobs. Some of us are married. Life has evolved, and so has the social realm. For all intents and purposes, we have free and unlimited phone calls, texting & video calling capabilities. The last of which sometimes put the real world experiences to shame, especially when the friend calling you is travelling to exotic places because they are now a full time influencer. Their entire lives are comprised of filming YouTube videos and going on Instagram Lives all day long.

If anyone is good at noticing trends, I think you might have picked up on a couple of things.

1. With the rate at which we can share information increasing, we also share more information. (It might sound obvious, but the two not as linearly correlated as it might appear.)
2. The number of people we are sharing information with has also drastically increased. It started with a few friends from around the block, to a text chain, to hundreds and thousands of people all across the internet, and the world.

The conclusion I am driving to, is that we think we know more about people, and also know about more people in the world. And thanks to the ever evolving social media, we can, at any point, share & consume thoughts and opinions of other people all across the globe.

There is one thing, that I feel is becoming a little elusive, which I would like to draw attention to today.

There is inherent beauty in the diversity of the human race. If we were all alike, all of us would have the same opinions about everything in the world, and consequently the world, as we know it, would most likely cease to exist.

Thankfully, all of us, while biologically alike, are very different, thanks to our upbringing, environmental factors and our own experiences. We form our own thoughts, opinions, beliefs and follow our own values.

In consequence, it is very unlikely that we like everything we hear from everyone. Accordingly, we form opinions about other people, their values, beliefs and thoughts.

Remember the time when our parents would disagree with an article in a newspaper? They would scoff at it, maybe say a few choice words, and then move on. However, today, we are armed with hurtful words, voices and most importantly, keyboards, which allow us to express and share our displeasure.

In this world, filled with these words, voices and keyboards, agreeing to disagree is no longer acceptable. We MUST do something to change the other person’s opinion to match our own.

Or should we?

Is it prudent to try and change the someone’s thoughts about something when there is no real implication of someone’s thoughts to our lives? What we are failing to realise is that the other person sharing their opinion is just as entitled to an opinion (no matter however bloody stupid it might be), as we are.

“Live and let live” is one sage advice that we should adopt in our daily lives to drastically boost peace and joy in our lives.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂