I muse about what witty comedians of yesteryear would make of our “new world order”. I’m thinking that they’d be stupefied by the abundance of new material right at their fingertips. Without question, there’s an introversion going on with the internet playing a role which is restricting folks from escaping their rational mind. Twitter is the platform right now which most readily exemplifies the overblown pragmatism facing mankind. My new coined phrase is “intangible tolerance” when comparing today to pre-internet. There used to be something healthy about not knowing and not having google at our fingertips. We could just let it all be and since we didn’t know…we could count on our friends and family not knowing either. Therefore we need not have judged or be judged – so much. Of course this is an oversimplification but I digress further.
Mind space pre-internet had more plasticity because neural receptors weren’t so fatigued with stimuli. Cognitive freshness was easier to access and within such a state would be acute to satirists stirring the social landscape for fun. You’ve all seen your good jokes fly overhead more because of the receiver distracted by reactionary thoughts compounded through a bombardment of stimuli. Receivers have simply not been in the ready position and you witness it every day.
A whole industry has evolved around assisting those stuck in the reactive mind. Ekhart Tolle comes to mind as an author who eloquently portrayed the phenomenon is his book “The Power of Now”. There are others more attuned at helping those transfixed by thought obsession. However; I might suggest diagnostic tests you can perform on yourself. Do you feel “heavy” or “light” in reacting to stimuli? Another test is whether you believe your level of concentration meets a standard set by yourself. Thirdly, you want to know how readily you can enter a place of creativity in absorbing and expressing.