We are really privileged, especially if we have access to the internet and the time to use it wisely. For that is the most important point. We can waste our times away very easily and swiftly, if we do not pay attention to our most precious resource, which is time. But on the other hand, we can train our mind, we can train our brain in a way completely unthinkable for former generations of human beings. If there is a problem in our times concerning that issue, it is not that access to almost any information your need in your life is denied, but how to find the right information in a big heap of what is often a kind of garbage. I think we do not live so much in an era of information but in an era of choice, of making the right selection of what is accessible to us. As much as there may be said about how the media influences the people, even they are blamed to stupidify a whole generation of younger people, and so on. The truth is, influence is what happens automatically, when people communicate with each other. There is nobody to blame for that fact. Every person has to pay attention on his or her own, it is not to the others to do that job for us. Face the fact, if you do not know what is important to you or what is not, you become like wax in the hands of others. And if so, you cannot accuse the world, other people, the media, or even the whole culture for your own lack of awareness.
Recently I was doing some research about different regions all around the globe. Including such remote places such as the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, the inner deserts of Asia, the islands of the South Pacific, southern Italy or the rain forest in Ecuador. Having not visited all this places on my own, I relied on reports of others who have seen them, books and guides and so on. But far apart from the technical data, I could use a lot of pictures of the landscape and especially what makes it more vivid, the use of hundreds of videos downloaded form Youtube.com. It gives you an inspiration and in some way it even touches your emotional system (of course only if you have made a similar experience throughout your life, so that your brain has a starting point to begin). For me, as a writer, this is even more valuable, because it supports me a lot in my daily work of writing. The combination of thinking and feeling with the help oft the world-wide-web is an enormous widening of my rage of action and imagination.
Not only the data material, in the shape of texts, pictures and movies, does a good job, but also the possibilities to connect with people throughout the planet. Sometimes you want to know something only people can know who live at a certain place, and/or at a certain time. And even this information you can get access to through the internet nowadays. Never before in my life, the net has ever been so precious to me. This is one reason, why I believe, we are living in absolutely great times. There are many more reasons of course and I will discuss them later in further posts. But for now, good night and have a nice time!
