We in the modern world of sound bytes and star crazed shallowness have a tendency to read or hear a 140 character, tweet sized encapsulation of another person’s perception of a thought, policy or persona and make our own determination of thumbs up or thumbs down in that instant.
First impressions are tough to change and in this day and age of digital dissemination, without some old fashioned “face-time” or the slow drip of getting to know someone so they “grow on us” it is even more challenging to survive the PR landslide of a bad review or commentary.
There are more than a few examples of people who are quickly condemned today by the media as nut-jobs. Take John Yettaw, the man who tried to single handedly free the Burmese leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest by swimming to her rescue across a locked down lake. He reached her, spent the night on her couch, and led to five more years of imprisonment for her hospitality. It took a Clinton to win his release from prison.
Or Gary Faulkner, the Colorado gentleman who says he is called by God to single-handedly track down Osama bin-Laden in the mountains of Pakistan, handcuff him and bring him to the authorities as his prisoner. He has made eleven attempts thus far and has almost killed himself numerous times trying.
We have a tendency to encounter these folks on Letterman or the View and after their five minute spot, we decide whether we approve or disapprove, agree or disagree, like or dislike. Likewise, it’s hard not to watch Dateline or Paula Zahn and not have an instant “gut” determination of an accused person’s innocence or guilt.
Then again, we like to believe that the information we are being presented isn’t biased but objective, un-altered, free of spin, award-winning journalism… If Sarah Palin’s Alaska is hosted by the Learning Channel, then we’d like to think subconsciously that there is no make-up crew or massive editing, colorization and manipulation happening.
Remember the Reuters photograph a few years ago in Beirut during the Israeli attack on the city that was proven to have been digitally manipulated with enhanced color, smoke and fire? All the news that’s fit to print, but if it isn’t quite fit, we can give it a nip and tuck and we’re good to go…
Mohandas Gandhi was a British educated attorney who one day shed his three piece tailored suit for a loin cloth and a sheet. He decided it was his destiny to lead the underclass of his society against one of the mightiest superpowers of the time. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a little known black preacher who felt it was his destiny to lead the underclass of his society against the racist policies of local and national government. Lech Walesa was an un-educated Polish factory worker who felt it was his mission to lead fellow workers against the oppressive, hypocritical government in the Solidarity movement.
So, what’s the difference between “one who is called” and one who is “bat-shit crazy?”
Some people believe that Santa Claus is real. Some people believe that Jesus could walk on water and raise the dead. Some people believe that it is their mission in life to stop gay people from getting married. Some people believe that one person’s beliefs are right while another’s is wrong.
Sometimes the line between a loss of reality and a creation of reality becomes so blurred that there really is no difference.
Jeffrey Sumber is changing the world, one relationship at a time. For over two decades, Jeffrey has worked to understand the human experience from as many angles as possible. As a successful psychotherapist, marriage counselor, and life coach, Jeffrey has worked with thousands of clients who strive to live their best lives.
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