Look Up...

Look Up - the new video on Youtube that has been doing the rounds on social network sites demoting the use of social media as the reason our society are 'less intelligent' than past generations, and the cause of our futures being formed by electronic gadgets rather than human interaction. A poetic song that looks at defining the impact of social media on our modern generation. Phrases such as 'when we open our computers, it is our doors we shut', 'device of delusion', 'Slaves to the technology we mastered', 'self interest, self image, self promotion', 'we pretend not to notice the social isolation' and 'we're surrounded by children who, since they were born, have seen us living like robots and think it's the norm. It's not very likely you'll make 'World's Greatest Dad' if you can't entertain a child without using an iPad' show his, and my personal views on how much we do rely on social media to step away from the reality to which we should be living, so as to please and offer up an insight to what a segment of our lives are like among other people, among people we do not even know in person. We engage in conversations, in arguments with people who could be on the other side of the world on the basis of whether The Killers meant to say 'are we human, or are we dancer/denser' or something else likewise mundane. I have watched TV programs dedicated to people who take their own time to make catfish profiles so as to imitate or mock individuals life or opinions. The phrase 'don't trust everything you read' couldn't be truer when talking about the internet. There are multitudes of fake profiles, of trolls setting their sights on one goal only: to make someone else's life miserable only because they are not happy within themselves or haven't learnt to grab life by the neck and enjoy their own existence. I have been brought up to believe that you are put in situations under different circumstances for a reason, whether you know what that reason is at that exact moment, or whether you realise the lesson you learnt from that moment in time a couple of years down the line, all those small moments in your life lead you somewhere, somewhere better than before. Yes, there are hardships along the way. Yes, there are hurdles in your path which you believe you are unable to overcome, but, in my opinion, the main sub-story that this video is trying to portray is one of being able to have that renewed hope, that renewed sense of optimism and belonging to the world without the belief that you have to share every moment of your life with people on Facebook or on other social media. In the end, it isn't about how many likes you get on a post on a photo of your graduation or your trip to Thailand, South America or Australia. This sense of needing to share with the world, with people you barely know or possibly don't know at all and have never met face to face has become almost a necessity it has overtaken our natural instincts just to live our lives and enjoy the freedom that has been given to us by our forefathers. Our society has become so hung up on how we are perceived in our online world that we forget how we are received in the real world!

Back at school, whenever I felt alone, rejected and lost, I looked for inspiration. Something to give me hope. Something to give me even a shred of blind optimism just to see me through each and every day. I found this very sense of belief, of hope, of optimism, in the form of Nick Vujicic. A man with a rare disorder that has meant he has lived his whole life in the absence of all four limbs. The struggle that man has gone through, the downs he must have faced on his way to adulthood, and adulthood itself, not only astonished me but taught me the importance of taking each day as it comes; of treating each person you see with a welcoming heart, a friendly smile, a person they can rely on - not a few words typed away on a computer screen. He is one of the happiest individuals I have seen and one of the most motivational people also. If a man with no limbs can live each day to the full and be happy, then why can't you be? Life goes on. We move on. You live on. Everyone has their own sob story so I won't go into mine, but I've hit lows and I've hit highs also. You just learn to deal with those lows so that you find a coping mechanism to deal with it if it happens again. The urge to share our entire lives with the internet is baffling.

Our life is what we make it into, not what social media thinks it should be, or, in the words of one of my favourite motivational quotes: 'When writing the story of your life, don't let anybody else hold the pen'

Carpe Diem

Jonathan Whitehead