social media | Collette OMahony (Author's blog)

Time swoops into focus, nudging us with a ticking noise, ‘keep moving’ it says, ‘my survival depends on motion’. The mind, wired like a ticking clock, swings between right and wrong, swayed by excitement and an avalanche of opinions. One day, it’s taking sides in a political debate, the next it’s swallowing every story of the digital age. Pierce through the stories about fractious nations, warring families and rising inflation, climb down from the pendulous left to right motion that is stealing your valuable life.

Solitude is the enemy of time sitting still among the swirling edifice and finding the eye of the storm where sanity prevails. Seek nature, walk in the forest, climb a hill for the views, in ten years, even twenty, these are the shining moments of joy that decorate our lives. Daily news stories that readership devours will be assigned to the scrapheap of our minds. Every step we take in nature reduces this mind-fill and allows us to live life on our terms rather than become fodder for the beast. In fifty or even a hundred year’s time no one will remember the irrelevance of commentary on insignificant stories, only facts will remain. Put down the phone, turn off the TV, step outside and take a deep breath. This is truth. We need air. We don’t need a constant drip feed from media outlets. Breath connects us with something greater than the news channels and apps that decorate our phone screen, it provides us with life. No one, ever, reached to check the latest news story when they were choking or in cardiac arrest. Breath is all important.

Every country has their headlines, every social network drowns in opinion swaying from left to right, we want free speech but only on our terms shouting down those who disagree. The online platform allows us to hide behind its shield and let our fingers do the talking. If we enter the slipstream of time and motion caused by outer phenomena we are in a state of reaction, positive action comes when we act from a place of stillness within.

Time moves at a speed corresponding to our mental activity. Slow the mind and time expands, fill the mind with news threads and we find ourselves swinging mercilessly upon the pendulum of time. If we wonder where the year has disappeared to, then we have consigned much of it to the scrapheap of our minds. If we can look back on the year and pick out several cherished moments, we have brought some balance to our lives. If, however, we sit in this moment neither looking backward or forward, we have achieved the magic moment that always exists, taking us beyond the boundaries of time into the very existence that pervades all life on earth and the universe.

Collette O’Mahony

January 2023

The divisiveness that plagues our society is perpetuated by leftist and rightist social media coverage, journalism and a host of movements. Daily, we seem to be frequently pitted against one another. At best, to express our opinion on the political, social or moral issues of the day, and at worst, spoon fed opinions on how to think and react. Whether it is capitalism, environmentalism, wokism or vaccines; the general public digests the current topic in the media and decides if they are ‘for’ or ‘against’ it. Surveys are taken across the demographic and the tide of public opinion is delivered. All any of these media partisans and vocal protesters only serve to drive a wedge between families, communities, races and nations.

We see with our eyes but we feel with our hearts. We should give ourselves credit to know the difference between outer appearance and our gut reaction. In other words, just because a person identifies with a specific gender, race, political party or movement does not make them any less of a human. In fact, all shades of behaviour, all skin tones and all genders belong under the umbrella we call humanity. Each member is a reflection of our combined psyche. Every facet of behaviour, every shade of prejudice, every cornerstone of morality resides in all of us, because if it presents itself in one part of the human race, it is present in all. Railing against another section of our community or nation indicates, not only the deep divide between humanity as a whole, but a chasm within the individual. It is this gap between understanding and compassion that we need to bridge within ourselves. When we blame, accuse or publicise our opinions against another person(s) under our human umbrella, we are levelling blame at our own shortcomings. It says ‘I cannot forgive, so therefore I must blame.’ Perhaps, this is the crux of our social divide, a lack of forgiveness and understanding for our human flaws. Revenge and retribution sit side by side in the jury that condemns our fellow human. I am not talking about heinous crimes here, but the lesser crime, albeit destructive, of judging and blaming others because we are unable to process our reaction and emotions to any given situation or event.

It is our duty to actively contribute to the evolution of humanity as a whole. If we are not to self-destruct, we must take responsibility for our emotions, including our anger, guilt, judgement and arrogance. We must seek out what unites us rather than what divides us. If we read or hear something that someone has done to upset us, feel that feeling fully. We need to allow our inner response mechanism to surface in an emotionally intelligent way. We must own the feeling rather than projecting it onto those around us, or using the social media’s story of the day to vent our inner frustration. By taking responsibility for our emotional reaction in any given situation, we are not only displaying emotional intelligence, but we are contributing to our evolution of consciousness as a species. The world, and our precious planet will be all the better for it.

Collette O’Mahony

12/03/2021