“Share” has become a strangely popular catchword these days. A word that catches our attention and minds.
No, it is not a question of sharing the wealth, or even the wisdom and insights. It is about sharing a photo of our newborn child or our dinner. Which often should or could be called showing. (Sometimes showing it down somebody’s throat.)
Sure, in a way you feel that I am sharing my life with you (a bit of it) if you can see pictures from my home or my birthday party. But it not sharing of bread, nor sharing a conversation at a café or a bar. Partly because it is so impersonal. There is nothing personal about a photo shared with two thousand Facebook friends. I would call that public or official.
Asking “What do we share?” is like asking “What am I putting in the drinking-water?” Because the so called feed in social media is like drinking-water. Small, short impressions that make up part of our total amount of impressions per day (TAIPD).
This can lead to the question: “How do I want to influence my circle of friends?” They are, in a direct and practical way, the “world” to me.
The world for me is my circle. THAT I can influence. I don’t know what happens beyond that circle, but something surely does happen.
It’s like chaos theory; the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world. That “flutter” can be my posting a link to a Duke Ellington song or a selfie from my visit to my mom, or any such “small thing”.
No, I cannot predict what the effects of my “fluttering” will or might be. But I CAN be clear about my intentions and motives. I have enough light to see myself, if not all of my ramifications.
So, why am I putting this specific drop in the mental drinking water of the world? That can be a question for social media, Facebook and such. Or for our everyday actions: my expression when I buy bread at the bakery, my choice of words when I meet my brother or a waiter in a restaurant. Or even, gosh, the thought I will think in ten minutes from now! Or am thinking right now.
My thoughts are also butterfly wings. What typhoon or sand storm or festivity and joy will they cause, somewhere on the planet, in the Universe?
Nobody knows that. But I CAN know my intentions and motives for my share, and thus carry my share in the forming of the world.
