Day 16: See Person, Eat Person
On Day 15 I promised zombies, and on Day 16 it’s time to deliver.
Zombies in popular culture are essentially dead people who walk (or sometimes run)
and unthinkingly and relentlessly eat people. Those are basically the two things they do: walk and eat. That’s why they’re so doggone scary. You can’t reason with them, you can’t talk them out of it, if they get you, they’re going to eat you. See human, eat human. Simple as that.
How on earth can zombies relate to anything going on in this 30 Days project?
For me, this project has been about taking steps to becoming a better man. In following my plan, my time has been diverted away from things that used to devour it: tv, media, etc. With that time, I’ve had more time for silence and more time for thinking that I usually have. It’s allowed me to take a step back and look at my actions and just the state of society in general with clearer eyes than I’m accustomed to having. And maybe I’m late to the game, but it sure seems like we as a people are spending much less time thinking and acting, and more time feeling, emoting, and reacting.
Now no one is saying that there’s anything wrong with those things, but it sure seems to me that in the Facebook world, there’s an awful lot of rage and venom being spewed about all things political… and that ALL THINGS are now political. It’s not uncommon, for me at least, to pull up my Facebook feed and maybe see one cute picture of a baby, followed by 9 straight stories with supermarket tabloid-style bombastic headlines screaming about everything under the sun, but mostly Donald Trump and how he’s ruining civilization. Then, I go to the comments, and I see my friends raging about the headline without even reading the story, which reveals that the headline was misleading: either for the purpose of getting your click (and the attached $$) or for riling you up.
See story… feel outrage.
So what’s the point, and how does this relate to zombies?
Zombies can only do two things, like we said. We are not zombies — we are not restricted to doing two things: loving or hating Donald Trump and the Republicans/Democrats. Now this isn’t about some “third way” or “better way” or “better deal” mumbo jumbo focus group mularkey.
It’s about not eating the plate of manure that’s set in front of us.
None of this is to say, “Don’t read the news… FAKE NEWS!” All I’m saying is to consider the motives and the source and to go deeper than a simple article that was spit out by a think-tank or nonprofit with undisclosed donors/funders, a current/former government employee, or any media organization out there. You don’t have to react in one of two ways. Instead, look at everything you read that deals with current affairs with a skeptical eye.
Everyone can agree that trust is an incredibly precious thing to give to anyone or anything. Why are we giving our trust to people we don’t know when we don’t know if they have our best interests in mind?
For example, consider what one government official said in recent years regarding his efforts to persuade the public on issue of public interest:
The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns… They literally know nothing… We created an echo chamber… They were saying things that literally validated what we had given them to say.
“Well,” you might say, “what are we supposed to do instead, not believe anyone, figure it out for ourselves, I don’t have time for that…”
Maybe you don’t, but you do have a responsibility to continue learning. If you’ve stopped learning and educating yourself, that doesn’t mean the guy next to you has. And if he hasn’t, then he’s going to take you for a ride if it’s to his advantage and he can get away with it.
That process of learning, of continued self-education is a vital element to achieving true manhood, according to Mansfield:
Devotion to self-education is unquestionably one of the marks of an exceptional man. Passive men wait for knowledge to come to them. Weak men assume what they need to know will seek them out. Men of great character and drive search out the knowledge they need. They take responsibility for knowing what they must know to live effectively in their generation and to prosper.
It’s not about sitting back and waiting for your Facebook or Twitter feed to refresh with your self-selected sources slinging the latest mud. We have to filter through the noise, and seek truth — that’s hard, it takes time and effort.
We can’t tend our fields, however, without a continued pursuit of knowledge through self education:
We cannot [tend our fields] without knowledge. We cannot do it if we are ignorant of our times, blind to the trends shaping our lives, and oblivious to the basic knowledge that allows us to do what we are called to do as men. We must know enough about law, health, science, economics, politics, and technology to fulfill our roles. We should also know enough about our faith to stand our ground in a secular age, resist heresies, and teach our families. We also shouldn’t be without the benefits of literature and poetry, of good novels and stirring stories, all of which make us more relevant and more effective . . . Men committed to tending their field learn, study, research, dig out facts, and test theories. They know how to safeguard their families. They serve well because they serve as informed men.
Don’t just go with the flow, trusting other people to tell you what you need to know. Don’t just take that limited information and act in the limited ways that information presents to you. Break the outrage cycle, don’t just react: Think for yourself, otherwise it’s just walking and eating.
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Quote of the Day I:
If you don’t program your mind it will be programmed for you.
~Dick Gregory
II:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind
~Romans 12:2
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Links to Past Episodes/Resources:
Introduction Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10
Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14 Day 15
Manfield’s Book of Manly Men: An Utterly Invigorating Guide to Being Your Most Masculine Self
If you have any feedback, please send me a message or leave it on my Facebook page: Thirty Days. This is a new project and I’d love to hear your thoughts. It is a tremendous encouragement to know that someone is reading this. Encouragement, comments AND criticism are welcome.
