Pictures are Worth a Thousand Tension

Somebody rightly said that pictures are worth a thousand words. And by that magnitude a moving picture is perhaps worth a million times more. I can only imagine the impact the first motion picture created over a hundred years ago would have had on someone. It's something about motion that attracts the mind; whether it's a river flowing over the rocks making it's way to the ocean or some gyrating to the sound of nothing.

Technology has advanced from Eadweard Muybridge's photography to Thomas Edison's motion picture to modern day movies from across the world that include works of art cinema, drama, documentaries, pornography to rovers walking on planets thousands of miles away! And the technological advances continue with every new model of phone or camera.

As the world adopted the technology everything in last few decades got recorded on either a magnetic tapes and finally onto silicon chips in form of zeroes and ones. And somewhere on the course of this advancement television became an indelible part of our lives. I remember the first color television set my father bought to watch a new Indian TV drama! 

And with internet and television information became prevalent. If you want to get some news you can go to cable TV or Youtube or Facebook or Twitter on your phone, television and laptop. It's so easily available in any form and from anywhere. And the news that you weren't even aware of is suddenly a concerning part of your daily life.

And with 24 hour news channels it's so easy to get sucked into the biases of the news corporation, news anchors or ever present talk show hosts. It's a barrage of visuals in front of you, whether it's the video of people rioting, protests, blasts, looting or famous people complaining about trivial matters. It's just negativity everywhere, CNN, Fox News, Discovery Channel, ESPN or any other channel you switch on your TV.

And with these visuals the tendency to make an immediate judgement sets in. These news channels indirectly, or sometimes directly as well, promote stereotypes, irrational fear, biased opinions and worst of all is apathy to certain things because of incessant repetition. 

I sometimes wonder the days when people would sit around lamps in the house and just read. Were they better off? I guess not, if you look at some of the crimes that were committed in the ancient world it seems the same biases were present. So as human beings are we flawed such that the opinions, decisions or actions we create in our minds and heart would be at best a reflection of our inner misgivings?

So is there something we can do be better? Yes, instead of forming opinions through videos, visuals it is sometimes better to be old-fashioned and just read about whatever you're interested in. As the saying goes don't judge the book by the cover, similarly don't judge the situation by the visual flashing before your eyes. Take your time and read and read and read.