Why do I want the largest social audience of anyone ever?
LOL that’s quite a goal. That means hundreds of millions of people, perhaps billions of people. Whatever platform that I find my audience is on and where I resonate the most with folks. Only time will tell where that is.
But again the why comes back to greatness. And being the greatest. Our relationship with superlatives is a complex one. There is wanting to be the greatest at something. But I feel like the more I think about it, the less likely or later it’s going to happen. It’s about setting the expectancy that I can be that, but having 0 expectations (of results) in the process. The harder I try, the further away it gets. It’s not the “trying” in the sense of effort, but doing things with the sole purpose being the result.
Combining my previous post with superlatives, superlatives have an external reference point. Greatest implies that there are others who aren’t as great as me at whichever topic. “Greater” as well.
We have to exert a bit more mental energy to shift that paradigm and reference point to an internal one. “Am I the greatest / best version of myself right now that I’ve ever been?” is a question we could ask ourselves constantly, or at least on some recurring manner.
Time-wise it also has a reference point, of the now comparing to the past. Hmm, in order to achieve anything in comparison to others or to the past, you have to achieve that for yourself. For example, going back to the original question, if I want the largest social audience for anyone ever, then I can’t achieve that without having the largest audience I’ve ever had myself. Being the best externally starts with being the best internally.
The other aspect of a social audience is the attention piece. I’ve kinda written about this but let’s go deeper. What I’m saying when I want a big audience is “I want to be heard” at the deepest level, along with “I want attention” and “I want people to listen to me.” What that has evolved into these days is “I want the most number of people talking about me.” Attention is not just about the conscious activity that we do, but the subconscious efforts of interacting with anyone or anything.
True attention is when people are talking about you even when it’s not directly the topic. That means you’ve done your job as someone who seeks another’s attention. When I quote someone from somewhere I’ve read or heard, their attention goes beyond temporary interaction and transcends time. When you’ve attracted someone’s attention / energy like that, that is key.
The thing is we’ve devolved as a society to jumping to this mindset when seeking fame, popularity, and greatness. Fame and popularity, then, are just defined as how much people’s energy is directed towards one specific thing or person.
The sad thing is to see the number of jobs in the world that are out there that focus on talking about other people. Like a lot of professions in the media. I’m not talking about news reporters here. They have an important job of providing information about the world.
However, it’s the next level of that that is saddening. Then there are people interpreting the news. Then there are people interpreting the interpretation of the news. Soon, the 3rd level ‘interpreters’ are discussing why they are correct about what’s taken place. They even make the news about themselves sometimes and talk about that. Like original event → their reaction → someone else’s reaction → them discussing the other person’s reaction as if it were news.
Macrocosmically, this is basically what has happened with religious institutions and several cultural traditions. Played out over millennia. There was an original text. Then someone has their interpretation. Then person B had their view. A & B disagreed so person B spread their interpretation. C followed B’s, D followed A’s.
Then as time went on, there were so many viewpoints that they stopped discussing the actual truth, in this case the Truth (capital T), and discussed how their interpretation of the Truth is incorrect.
Now there may be a truth. And different people will have different interpretations. But to imply that those differences can’t be reconciled is not accurate. You can view something differently and still be correct. Like that’s a literal fact. A subjective fact. But a fact nonetheless.
We’ve conflated / confused objective facts to imply subjective facts, and that’s where a lot of irreconcilable differences start and fetter.
So let’s say the religious context is Macro level. The news is medium level. What’s on the micro level?
I’d say gossiping is the equivalency. Talking about others without others there.
You’re person A. You and your friend person B have a disagreement. A feels some way, B feels some way. A then talks to mutual friends C & D about that. B talks to E & F. If the intention was to get a different perspective and then A & B reconcile, that’d be fine. But then C & D talk to E & F about what A & B told each of them, and then there’s differences there. Then C & D tell A that. E & F tell B that. And then A & B don’t hash it out because they’ve gotten interpretations and interpretations of interpretations off which they’re basing the truth.
This is basically what news has evolved into and even, dare I say, some aspects of religion. At the core, none of these are inherently wrong. Religion, news, talking to others. If with the right intention, strategy, etc. AND tactically, the degrees of separation from the truth. Whether objective or subjective.
The reason I now have an aversion to the news is because of the degrees of separation from the actual information. It’s actually the filtering of the info that’s diluting the content.
So what we can do to avoid / mitigate this is to reduce the ‘distance’ from the source for as many people as possible. To reduce the # of filters and interpretations in between.
I’m going to challenge myself to being more engaged in current events now but with the clarity of this awareness. To seek things out that have #nofilter. :) This is the 3rd definition of that here. And that’s honestly what religion has allowed people to do with the greatest success compared to other systems. Get the truth to as many people as possible. With the fewest degrees of separation between subject and object. And to read the original scriptures instead / before reading interpretations. And to reconcile any differences between anyone directly instead of indirectly.
To answer the original question, to reduce the degrees of separation of the spread of my ideas for as many people as possible. That may be what I’m really after.
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