The incredible value of being silly

Throw a stick, any stick. Did it come back? Ah, then it wasn't a boomerang.

Such esoteric thoughts as those expressed above really epitomise the intended nature of this blog. Huzzah, it is truly wonderful that we can do things like this now, proclaiming to the whole wide world whatever we wish without fear but with hope of maybe reaching someone who thinks in some of the same ways that we do.

priggish: exaggeratedly proper

worldliness: the quality or character of being intellectually sophisticated through cultivation or experience or disillusionment

canto: a major division of a long poem

This capacity, this privilege, is unprecedented throughout history. For centuries, people in privileged countries have had the ability to write but not distribute freely, but we have both now and we can not only distribute but broadcast. It is awesome. We don't have the ability to make people read what we write except through good fortune and exceptional talent but the opportunity is there. It's really overlooked and taken for granted though, against the background of ubiquitous frivolity such as Facebook and Google+. Think about we can do for a moment. There, isn't that great? Isn't that awesome?

Now, it is awesome that we can speak to the world and of course that has a flipside, the dark side of the coin. That flip side is the rapid evolution in worldliness that comes from the world wide web. We open ourselves up and inevitably get the negative effects and rejections that cause cynicism to set in. We lose the ability to be wilfully innocent in many ways as we're exposed to junk, scams, smut and advertisements. Now, I don't say 'innocence' but 'willful innocence', where both can be reasonably used. That is simply because we don't know to even emulate innocence any more. We could even be thought of as priggish, exaggerated toward the loss of innocence and incursion of worldliness. It's sad.

How can we reconcile the incredible liberty to communicate with the world with the accelerated worldliness that is its consequence? Well, it's hard. There are no obvious answers. The easiest thing would be to exercise good judgement to begin with but most of the damage is done in childhood and it always has been. This is not new. Long before the Internet it kids in the school yard, then radio, film, and finally television. The current canto in the long lyrical development of the global social community is the Internet. The world hasn't ended; it has merely become more cynical if not worldly. There's a little less fun.

Even if there's a little less fun, we can still throw a stick and watch it not come back. We can be silly if we want, and our main goal is to encourage silliness. It may seem impossible to lighten the mood of the world to make hard things seem easier, but... 'What if we could?'.

Go out and be silly. It's fun.
O.