Perhaps it's my ongoing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or simply a more discerning approach to the media I consume, but I can't help but feel that there is still an overwhelming amount of information to sift through. The Dark Ages were a period when information was lost in one part of the world, even as others thrived in an enlightened era. But beyond rediscovering taste and being meticulous with how we spend our time, I've realized that to navigate this era of profound geopolitical shifts, I must create moments of tranquility and calm in my daily life. I need pockets of patience and foresight, spaces for connecting with loved ones, away from the relentless onslaught of information. The world is fraught with darkness, but there can be light in certain corners.
These times feel crucial, and they underscore the importance of doing my best, especially when my field, journalism, is under threat in my homeland from both political radicals and foreign influences. By doing my best, I hope to endure the pain, suffering, and loss I feel as an Arab, and to figure out how I can use my chosen profession to effect change in the world. Growing up in Al Ain as a third culture kid, I was exposed to a broader perspective on the world, and politics often seemed omnipresent in my life. We had conservative religious English teachers and progressive political math teachers, physics teachers who introduced us to fantasy novels, and history teachers who encouraged us to delve into the sciences.
I'm not sure if this experience was unique to the UAE or just my own, but when you have such diversity in the classroom, it fosters values of consensus building and technocracy in students. One example was a series of environmentalist campaigns our school ran during my GCSEs; a mantra of 'think globally, act locally.' And perhaps it was just my graduating class, but given the array of graduate degrees, engineers, lawyers, teachers, doctors, and finance professionals among us, I believe that pushing students—young people—to constantly think, grow, and change equipped us with the tools to make that change in our own lives, which could then spread.
Speaking of Gen-Z now, social media has initiated us into a globalist mindset, tempered with the understanding that we can only control our own lives. I'm not advocating for individualism, far from it. We need to build community, and some of those islands of peace should be with our friends and family. 'It takes a village' is a phrase for our times, and you can't expect to navigate these overwhelming times, with information constantly flowing in, on your own. So, if we're in a digital bright age, spiraling towards a critical mass of too much information, increasingly questioning what's real and what's fake, we owe it to ourselves to, at times, do more than disconnect; we owe it to ourselves to disengage.
Disengaging doesn't mean giving up or stopping, but it does mean refueling. More than a 45-minute session with your therapist or an hour at lunch each day, but consistent, intimate connections on various levels, so you can continue connecting with people and finding individual lights to nurture and rely on amidst the overwhelming brightness.
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