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Surfing for faith

Mar 1, 2019

It wasn’t that long ago that the internet came into existence

One’s faith is determined by the belief in one person or a collective. One’s faith can grow and expand onto others quickly, some take centuries to flourish, some are done in secret and some right out in the open. Whatever one’s faith is, it sure doesn’t seem to agree with other faiths, so humanity has to start believing in themselves, other than trying so hard, or so little, to be part of the collective.

Yes, I’m talking social media beliefs. Take, for example, the belief that Facebook would bring many people together and unite them. It turned out that people just gathered together in their own groups and believed in their own world. As yin and yang go, these groups collected into millions of groups each with the capacity to create their own society of believers. In fact, the great unification theories and dreams of the past have just divided the pie into crumbs instead of slices, creating an even more bewildered society. The choices for those who don’t believe in anything are dwindling and now even the family is kept together with piles of sticky likes and emojis.

I catch myself offering a thumbs-up and saying “drama” for just about every little disturbance in real life and looking for the next wi-fi hotspot as I search for some new tidbit or major occurrence somewhere far away and still feel that I’m part of the world.

It wasn’t that long ago that the internet came into existence. Now we cannot live without it for very long. In fact, when the power is off and the signal isn’t reaching your modem, or whatever the problem is, it’s a feeling that seems be similar like coming out of a coma.

Speaking of coming out of comas, has anyone watched a daytime soap opera recently? Half the time, the lead actor is in a coma, yet still gets adoring fans longing for their star to wake up and get some acting done, but that was a generation ago.

Fixation on television is about the same. We tend to cluster around a few channels, even though hundreds are available at the click of a button. The lazyboy is the official throne for those mesmerized by their large-screen, high-definition, surround-sound system. But when it comes to hockey, nothing beats live action.

Hockey is a sport for those diehard fans who don’t have time to conduct long conversations and type on a small hand-held phone. Why bother when it’s all-natural 3D complete with smell-o-vision and super virtual reality, and you can quaff beer without worrying about the next inbox from some poor person asking for the score in some place other than where the action is. Scoff all you like, but nothing beats real action. That goes for swimming, any outdoor activity and even walking to the phone when it rings on your landline.

The other night when we couldn’t play bingo and there wasn’t enough drama to make popcorn for. So we actually watched a movie on the DVD player on a 10-year-old plasma screen. The resulting laughter and family time was worth every second and the leftover Valentine’s chocolates tasted just fine.

It’s time for our beliefs to come back home and live there. Not to say that others are wrong or anything, but what makes us happy is just about the perfect thing to promote as good as any other belief.

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