Context is king

Grab the attention of the reader! This is the cardinal rule for any creative writing. You see the advice given out for blogs, Instagram captions, emails and any format with something to say.

The thing is, do we really have something to say, or has it just become about the attention-grabbing headline itself?

As our attention spans reduce, so does the length of any content we consume. What used to be an article became condensed writing on Instagram spread across 2-3 slides of a carousel, to now a single slider with some random background music playing to keep the reader's attention for just 5 seconds in their endless scroll. And in those 5 seconds, there isn't anything that can be said that will be specific and to the point, or it will just alienate 99% of the people reading it. No, it has to be just vague enough that the general population can agree. Preferably something sentimental, say about the pain of a heartache. Just put some words about 'how the world expects us to be strong when they don't know what battles we fight everyday' and you are good to go, right?

I don't mean to be emotionally dismissive; the point here is that anything of value, especially an opinion requires setting context.

I recently saw a reel about a parent talking about the need for tough love to his 3-year-old son, telling how entitled children become when they are just handed over everything and how the concept of gentle parenting is essentially BS. The comments below were filled with angry retorts of how this kind of thought process has created people-pleasing adults who don't recognize their own desires because they never expected them to be met at all.

I understand both sides. They are both correct in their own right. The thing is, childhood, heartbreak, loss, uncertainty are all universal emotions, and while quotes and a 30 second reel can capture the feeling of being a child, no two people experience everything quite the same way. We come from different backgrounds, have different beliefs and want different things out of life.

It is extremely easy to read one or two resonant lines and transpose our entire experience to that. A lot of us could read just 2 lines about an academic achiever who felt lost while transitioning to the real world and find it easy to map our own emotional turmoil to the words written, even if the words are not exactly saying that, which is the precise point. Eye catching posts, quotes, tweets, whichever format you find them in are vague enough so that we can equally resonate with whatever they said, just as long as they trigger an emotional reaction. Now because we are emotionally tied to it, we will view it as a personal transgression when someone disagrees to the argument. And that is the trap. The trap to go through these highs and lows and becoming addicted to the ride. To refuse to open our eyes and ears to anything else being said. It's easy right? 10 seconds of investment and so much to feel, defend against and fight for. Why should we bother with sitting with the emotional distress it created within us when we can just move onto the next thing?

This short-sighted thinking while consuming content also extends to the way we form opinions - opinions which become permanent faster than we realize. There is no room for nuance, for context, and if like me you have ever liked reading any book, it could be a novel, a comic book, or even a movie, that is the whole fun of it.

Who would care for a man dressed as a bat with a cape if we don't know why Bruce Wayne became Batman? He could as easily say he needs to protect Gotham city and there would be no reason to disagree. One could question his methods, but we know why he goes into vigilante mode because we know his backstory. We know his childhood, his loss, his fears and what motivates him. It not just makes for a more enjoyable experience when we watch the story unfold, but also sticks with us. It gives us enough room to understand his principles so that when an antagonist like the Joker comes up with a different world view, it still, in its own way, makes sense. We could see why someone facing hardships could go down one path while somebody else chooses the other, both of which are tied together by tragedy and pain.

How come we are more accepting of both a hero and villain viewpoint in a story than we are in real life, which is more complicated, personal and unfair by a mile?

Does this mean we stop creating or consuming any polarizing, emotionally triggering, short form content? No.

What it does mean is that there needs to be room for accommodation while we are reading or watching anything. I could read a quote from my favorite author and treat it like gospel, but the truth is we operate in different systems completely, and different games are played by different rules. I could say that the best way to operate it is within the confines of your system rather than resisting them. Somebody else could say to fight the system and believe in your personal voice than anything external. No two people get successful in the exact same way. A lot of us would even differ in defining success. To some, success stems from a passion fulfilled. To others, success would mean a passion found along the way. It is great to take lessons from other people's lived experiences but what helps in understanding what applies to us is context.

The more I consume in this increasingly divided world (which at least seems divided because we just have too much to hear from everyone), is to see the world in multiple ways at the same time and being able to appreciate each way without an outright judgement and label of right and wrong. It might not be the most exciting, but it does feel more peaceful.