The make believe world is somewhere over the rainbow.
Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg wrote a song back in 1939 that drew people’s imaginations to a place in never neverland. One line says this,
“Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”
I think one time or another everyone wants to escape to a place where one does not have to live in reality. I can’t speak for ancient history, but certainly in this modern age we find ourselves wanting to escape. Today we have more modern conveniences than ever before. We have such knowledge at our fingertips than anyone could ever have imagined. The only trouble is that we live at such a fast pace now like never before. These things have not given us joy but hardship. It has not saved us time, but caused us to waste our time, and life is passing us by quicker than ever before. Yet, we say that we could have never lived without these things. If we could go back and ask anyone in the past what they thought of our modern conveniences they just might say “NO Thanks!” No, not all of our modern conveniences are bad, but for sure cell phones equipped with the internet and especially social media have turned many people’s lives into a nightmare. We find ourselves being very unsocial, very critical and down right mean in many cases. People have actually committed suicide over social media. Depression and mental illness have gone off the charts because it has made us into a society where everyone sees everyone’s opinion, through the eyes of good or bad. It humiliates us when people say negative things about us and criticize us. Then we must face our friends and peers and they have judged us by other’s opinions. It is a new and quicker way of being a bully! It’s like the shot that is heard around the world. Why do we think that we now have to follow the crowd on social media, wasn’t it bad enough when it was just at school? If there was such a place over the rainbow where there are blue skies and never a cloud in the sky, where it never rains but always sunshine, where a person can run and hide from people who know nothing else but to hurt and destroy peoples’ lives, then I think we all would want to live there. There is such a place, and that place is a place where no one but you can go, and that is within ourselves, so deep within ourselves that we never want to come out from it. Depression can hurt so bad that we become like a recluse closed in behind the doors of our minds. We lock ourselves in so no one can hurt us. This is a place where we never want to drive anyone to. It is a lonely place, a dark place and the hurt never goes away. It is a living hell. Modern conveniences should better our lives, but when we can not even put down our phones to drive safely, or even communicate at the family table, then we are no better off than anyone with any other kind of addiction. We are prisoners, we are addicts, we have not bettered our lives, but in reality we have lost them to the addiction of social media. You may not believe this, because no one ever wants to admit that they have an addiction. Step back and take a hard look at yourself, and judge yourself properly to see if you have become a better person, a loving person, a kind person all because of social media. If you are honest, you would have to say, “NO.”