radicaledward101

Living in the Internet age make statements about living under a rock no longer valid. There’s too much uncommon cultural currency for us to learn everything that’s going on in the world that everyone else expects us to know. People are discovering new artists every day, but, to expect everyone else to have heard of the same musicians as you no longer make sense because of the proliferation of creative material.

For instance I just learned about the artist Grimes, but she has been popular amongst some group of people for quite some time. My mind perceives this discovery as big and new but for some it is certainly not. There are so many ideas that what’s new for some is old for others.

Even this idea, about living under a rock, which is new to me, is not new to others. Everything is relative. And even more important, there are many ideas which I have for the first time months or even years after they have been communicated to me, sometimes repeatedly. Our brains are simply not built to take in 100% of the information available.

No matter how many times someone may have told me about Grimes in the past, whether via radio, YouTube, or word of mouth, it is still correct to say that I discovered her now, in this moment.

Similarly I would be incredibly surprised to talk to an American who has never heard of Donald Trump, but I shouldn’t be. The likelihood that such a person exists is 100%. Someone somewhere has a brain which has identified Donald Trump as irrelevant and never allowed his existence to enter their knowledge base, or has simply never encountered his existence at all. They are probably better off for it.

So when someone doesn’t know about your favorite thing, don’t mock them for not being in the know. Be excited you get to teach them about it!

This is relevant: https://xkcd.com/1053/ If you haven’t heard of xkcd yet, congrats!

Occasionally stuff just pores out of my head. This is one of those times. This was written in one sitting partially via Siri text to speech. I didn’t edit it much. Sorry.

I’m trying to practice every day. I don’t always get it in, but I usually do.