SDF Media

One of my images was in the promotion of Share the Light By Profoto

Looking vs seeing - Observing vs understanding

As the media continues to evolve and becomes more immersive and immediate, we as individuals are challenged to select, examine, and just keep up with news, friends, and family.

Since we as a society that values efficiency, we adapted to skimming vs examining and thinking, bottom-line awareness vs comprehending and seeking the counterpoint and the other perspective. We have become a society that looks vs sees.

However, while we are simplifying and just looking, at the economy, society and technology are achieving higher and higher levels of complexity and crosscurrents. So while the world is more complex, and multi-layered, with cross-currents that constantly are shifting and changing, we are increasingly spending less time understanding and developing insight that enables and helps us make informed and efficient decisions.

Over the last few hundred years we fought hard to have a voice in our political system and society, but we spend less and less time being able to make these informed decisions. We have resorted to being trend followers and increasingly delegating our decisions to leaders that have their own priorities and we are the lowest on their priority list. Democracy puts the responsibility of being informed to have an informed vote, and society is less and less aware vs knowing or understanding. We have adapted by just being there and enjoying life rather than having a purpose and being involved in the collective voice.

Part of a series "Social Responsibility and Living with Purpose".
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Looking at the world around us through a preconceived lens.

One of the main concerns voiced when asked about their concerns is turbulence and volatility. The world is too uncertain, and many "unprecedented" shifts. In other words, it is not what we expected, and since we expect a familiar pattern we are both challenged and overwhelmed and have difficulty making sense of the world we live in.

It really goes back to how we view and assumes is the world order. Is it in "equilibrium", with a trend and when there is a deviation from the trend, there is a reversal to the mean? Or is the world order in "disequilibrium", always changing and there is no reveal to the mean? That implies that there is no "Normal"

The evidence for equilibrium is only for a very short time. SO "Normal" is not to be expected and going back to normal is an unnatural state of affairs.

Evidence from our experience, and history point to disequilibrium. The world is in a constant state of change and adaptation. If you do not adapt you are obsolete and perish. Change is to be expected, we as the human race always look for a better life, and innovate, and as a result, there is dramatic change driven by the disruption of new ideas, methods, and aspirations.

If you look around and only see silence and monotony you have not been paying attention for a long enough time. There is always change, and every once in a while there is a regime shift and we have a new world, society, political order.

Part of a series "A society in a constant state of change: We should not cling to history and the past it should inform us of who we are and how we got here and why. . We should have a healthy dialogue and arrive at a consensus - we should chart our future to what we want collectively." ⁠
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