Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Attack of the Little Fish

We've become addicted to hyperbole.

Reality shows (I know, the name is ironic) feature participants whose every emotional drama and bodily function is the stuff of Greek tragedy. Every new invention is set to change our entire way of life. The common person on the street is ready, willing and able to speak volumes about subjects he or she knows nothing about. Bloggers like me spend hours firing our musings into the ethos, hoping someone will notice.

While I'm relieved that the world is changing in such a way that everyone can have their say, I'm a little concerned at our collective insistence that we're all entitled to be important, all of the time. It seems that the same mechanisms that allow us to get up on our soap boxes and be heard could be the same one that makes us feel small in the first place. Let's face it, our global village is getting considerably more populated. It could be that we're all now acutely aware of the size of our "pond", not to mention the fact that all of the rest of the little fishes out there can now swim right in our faces.

I'm confident that this pendulum, like many before it, will someday swing the other way. We'll gain confidence in our own individual "specialness" and get over the need to scream it from rooftops at every opportunity. As a wise person once mused, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Until then, I'm not ashamed to admit that this little fish, like her contemporaries, is willing to wait until everyone else acknowledges her awesomeness. Hey, I'm only human.

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