If we want to be heard, we must first stop making noise.
Distance and time are no longer barriers to communication. Distance has become irrelevant and the time between putting a message into the world and having that message received has condensed down to nearly an instant.
The new barrier to communication is noise.
Everyone in the world with an internet connection has the potential to be a public speaker. This makes the public mediascape a very noisy place.
There are a near infinite number of forces, some malignant and some benign, vying for our digital attention in any given moment.
With so many people talking, posting, commenting, and sharing, actually being heard when we have something to say can be quite difficult and even frustrating.
If silence is not an option, we essentially have two choices. We can try to be louder than everyone else or we can try to be better than everyone else.
The thing to realize with regards to the former strategy is that it is also the more obvious and easier of the two to attempt. Because of this, many, many more people, organizations, and corporations are also trying the same thing and we are all but guaranteed to be outnumbered and out-funded.
The latter strategy, on the other hand, while it may seem much more difficult to attempt and to pull off, may not actually be. The reason for this is quite simple. There is a lot less competition in that realm of better than there is in the realm of louder. Less competition means less noise.
If we want to be heard, our goal should be to be better not to be louder.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
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All notifications are not created equal.
We now live in the notification era. Instead of us having to actively seek out information, communication, and interaction, the technology we have at our fingertips has become such that these things actually seek us out.
Our phones, tablets, and computers ding, buzz, and light up all day and all night letting us know that someone is trying to tell us something, that someone is saying something to us or about us, and that someone, somewhere, is paying attention to us.
This triggers not only our curiosity, but also our vanity. It makes us feel special. It makes us feel seen, heard, and appreciated. Attention, recognition, and adoration, we tell ourselves, are only a click, a swipe, a fingerprint, or facial scan away.
We post, we comment, and we share, and each time we do, the anticipation builds. We begin to wonder whether or not people will notice and appreciate our posts, our ideas, our photos, videos, and memes. We become self-conscious, nervous, and frightened. What if they do not?
We wait. We check. We wait. We check again. Finally, it happens and we get the alert telling us that someone was paying attention, someone noticed us, and someone connected in some way with the part of ourselves that we put into the world.
We start to realize that certain posts, shares, and comments get us more attention than others, not good, healthy, or positive attention, per se, but some kind of attention. This begins to change the way we think and the way we present ourselves to the world.
Deep down, we are afraid of being alone and unloved, and it feels good to be noticed, even if for the worst parts of ourselves. Instead of being better, instead of making positive change, and instead of adding value to the world, we become, create, and contribute that which gets noticed, for better or worse.
It is up to us to break the cycle and to do something that matters, not something that is merely noticed.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.
If you found this post helpful or meaningful in some way, please feel free to Share, Comment, and Subscribe below.
“There’s never been a better time to have an idea. There’s never been a better time to be a writer, a singer, a speaker, a podcaster. There’s never been a better time to figure out how to help people than right now, but instead we spend an hour watching cat videos.”
—Seth Godin
A blog or a podcast is nothing more than a homing beacon for other ‘folks like us.’ It is a way of putting a signal into the world so that others can know how to find someone with whom they may share a common frequency or who may even raise their frequency. It is a way of saying, “Here I am. Here is my message. Here is my contribution. If you are drawn to this, if you can relate to this, or if you are inspired by this, join me on my journey so that we do not have to go it alone.”
The difference between these platforms and social media is in how the content is curated and who it is curated for. On social media, content is curated by the platform itself and it is curated to lead the user, as a product, toward the real customers who are the companies buying the user’s information so that they can sell to those users. On social media, just like on television or radio, the content is curated for the advertising companies to profit off of the users’ preferences, patterns, and uninterrupted presence.
A blog or podcast, on the other hand, is curated by the actual creator for him or herself and his or her potential, often niche, audience. It is specific, personal, and voluntary, a cumulative body of work, usually with a theme, a point of view, and a direction, as opposed to a never-ending stream of suggestions. It is a statement about the creator and his or her ideas, opinions, experiences, and perspective as a means of contributing to the cultural conversation in a helpful, non-invasive way that ideally sparks a movement, no matter how small, in a new and interesting direction by and for ‘folks like us.’
Note: Thank you Christian Hipsky at the Spiritual Defense blog for finding enough value in my experience and opinion to ask me a question that made me think about why I blog.
Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.
Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.
Follow Robert Van Valkenburgh and Holistic Budo on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.
If you found this post helpful or meaningful in some way, please feel free to Share, Comment, and Subscribe below.
Meditations on God 