Do You Know Where Your World Comes From?

This has been bugging me for quite some time now. I notice it all the time and it has been increasing gradually everyday. I hear it on the radio, see it on television, and watch it in everyday life between the interactions with the various people I encounter. What I am noticing is the ever growing comparison of people's lives and knowledge to negative influences of popular culture and mass media sources.

Our paradigms, or worldview, are shaped from the time we exit from the womb. Every experience, every interaction, every bit of everything influences our sense of self and our sense of the world. However, there is a critical point in our life where outside influences don't hit you "as much" as they would. This point, to some people, is when you reach a level of adulthood. So outside influences must get you when you're most vulnerable, as children.

I work at a high school where many ideologies are formed and burned into the consciousness of your everyday citizen. High school, mainly, structures you for what you will be as you grow into a law-abiding citizen. However, as I stroll the hallways performing my duties, I notice the conversations between today's youth and it completely astounds me what they do in their lives, how they portray themselves to the world, and how they treat people.


Like I said before, most of our morals, ethics, and identity come from our day to day influences. So where are your kids getting their influences from? Many things influence them; yet some, in my opinion, should not taken lightly such as the radio and television.

Radio and television are sources where pop culture is displayed. What pop culture teaches us that in order to fit in with the "crowd", you must look like this, act like this, behave like this, but mainly THINK like this. Pop culture wants you to think they way they want you to think. Why? Nobody will ever know the real answer to that, unless you're the driver of the pop culture train.

So take this into account with your life. Do you watch a lot of television? Do you listen to a lot of radio stations? But most importantly, do you get most of what you believe to be real from these sources? Really think about what you find to be "real" and see whether or not they compare to what you listen and hear. You might surprise yourself.