Is Ignorance Truly (Summer) Bliss?

When I think back to my lazy summers in elementary school, I think of large, melting Slurpees, rainbow chalk dusted palms, red scrapes and princess band-aids from falling off of my bike, and having absolutely no cares in the world. I didn't have any knowledge on pressing social issues, I didn't have an educated political stance, and if you asked me who the president was, I would've probably said Tinkerbell. The most important thing in the world to me at the time was whether I could remember my Animal Jam log-in or not. I can't remember exactly when that stopped being what summer felt like, but now, I only feel a deep sense of nostalgia-- and I'm sure it's the same for many of us.

Over the summer, we compiled a list of 10 events that happened in the world. When I finally sat down to think of what I should write about, depressing news was the first to pop up in my mind. It wasn't a conscious decision at all-- it was simply what I remembered the most. When we compiled a list of the 10 most important events as a small group, I realized that the same thing had happened to others-- majority of the items on everyone's lists were negative. Destructive fires in Maui and Canada, detrimental air quality, affirmative action rulings, and lives lost in the Titan submersible incident. Pop culture and sports had also made up a small portion of some lists, but ultimately, there were close to none truly positive things on anyone's list. Why does negative news have so much more coverage than positive news, and what do our lists say about us?

It made me wonder if our generation would have a more positive outlook on life if we weren't constantly bombarded with pessimism from every form of social media starting from a young age. Platforms like Tiktok, Instagram and Twitter serve as informal news outlets for so many us, and we don't even realize it. Even when we aren't actively trying to learn about what's happening in the world, we unconsciously are. The question is: would we be happier if we weren't aware of such issues? Or would that only take away from what we can contribute to important conversations about the state of our world? Is it better to be aware or to be innocent? 

If it wasn't an American normalcy to get a phone in our teenage years, what would our summers have been like? What would we be like? Who knows. But it's definitely food for thought. 

From, 

Vinaya ☀️

Comments

  1. Rhea PawarSeptember 10, 2023 at 1:13 PM

    After reading your post I realized that subconsciously I also made my 10 event list include only events with negative implications. I remember looking through the news and current events sites, and I subconsciously chose those to add to my list. I think for some reason I associate tragedy with global news even though positive breakthroughs are just as important.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mili BharatiyaSeptember 10, 2023 at 8:18 PM

    I love the way you chose to express you thoughts in a letter format and connect your life experiecnces to the learning. I completely relate with you on how you came up with your 10 events list. The negative news is so much more publically celeberated almost compared to possitive news. Crime and Political differences are almost the first thing I thought of when I was doingmy 10 events

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Get In Loser, We're Writing Our College Essays

Image
Word of the week: Abecedarian (noun) - A person who is learning the alphabet.  Bet you’ve never heard that word before. Did you know that the average 20 year old American knows around 42,000 words on average ? Okay, that does seem like a lot. But do you know how many words exist in the English language? It’s actually such a vast, ever-changing and expanding amount that no one really knows. Not even experts. So for this blog, every word of the week will eventually connect back to the topic at hand. I was actually originally going to name this blog ‘The Lazy Logophile’, so that should tell you more than enough. But back to the topic at hand… College essays. Squeezing 16 years of life into a 650 word (shoe)box. Every single time I try to sit down and write anything , I find myself second-guessing everything . Could it be better? Cooler? Funnier? Show more of my ‘personality’ (whatever that means)?  It has me feeling much like an abecedarian , in the sense that everywhere I step s...
Read more

The Trees and I

Image
Word of the week: Psithurism (noun) - The sound of wind blowing through trees and rustling their leaves. Every Saturday morning, when dawn has just begun to show herself and the world takes on a soft, muted quality, I put on my wool socks and my favorite worn hoodie to venture out into the biting air. Right in the middle of my street, there is a secret dirt path that seems to lead straight into thick greenery. Eventually, when the houses fade away, and I'm among the willows and honey locusts, and the light flows through the leaves in a way that makes me thankful that I feel the sun on my face, I am no longer a suburban teenager; but a weathered explorer on a quiet quest for hidden treasure. But truly, real treasure is the feeling my walks evoke within me.
Read more

Jacob the Painfully Unfunny 6th grader

“I don’t think I can pronounce that— wait, can you spell it for me? I’ll put in the presentation.”   The 6th grade. English class. A guy named Jacob. We were starting our powerpoint presentation on Tuck Everlasting, and were put in pairs. Of course, when  his  name was typed out, there was no angry red line squiggling under all the letters like a snake. But on mine— well, that was a different story. “V, I, N, A, Y, A.” Almost instantly, that snake appeared. It was almost like a signal, a blaring “HEY. LOOK AT THIS WORD RIGHT NOW. THIS WORD IS  WRONG .”  Jacob saw that, and to his 6th grader brain the angry red snake meant you had to click and hold to use autocorrect. And when ‘Vineyard’ and ‘Winnie’ showed up to save the day from the angry red snake and effectively erase me, Jacob thought this was the funniest thing in the world since bad minecraft memes. “Hey guys oh my god come over here look what came up in autocorrect for her name dude that’s soooo funny hah...
Read more