Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

We Should Stop Repeating Ourselves

We repeat ourselves and those who has hooked on to this fact use it against us.

Sometimes we are fed something by the media or by those who control the media who need to control the public opinion. The instant we hear that, we repeat it.

As soon as one person hears it from one radio station, from a TV channel, from a public speaker, or from any other person, he repeats the same idea to someone else, making it extend like a chain reaction.

Then that idea, or even worse, that lie feels like a fact.

With partisan, flame-throwing windbags, this is not so much of a problem, because they are obvious. What is scary is the not-so-obvious but what looks real or innocent, which can turn into an insidious epidemic.

This has happened with every bad decision that has been taken. This happens with every mistaken vote we cast.

This happens with everything, not just politics. This happens with medicine; this happens with law; this happens with the food we eat; this happens with the places we visit. The connotation of mindless repetition is infinite.

I don't know why this happens so often. Maybe we enjoy looking like we are deep thinkers or maybe this is learned behavior. In any case, what is wrong with saying "I don't know" or "I don't know enough about that subject to form an opinion"?

All this rant came about because a very cute old man stopped me on my way out of the public library yesterday. I had just borrowed a couple of books on finance and investing. This man, seeing what I had borrowed at the check-out desk, lectured me long and hard on how terrible the internet is and how big companies grab the little people's money, and how AARP is the best to help us etc., etc.

Everything I have heard before was being parroted to me by this man. If he weren't so old and off-the-wall, I'd have told him off. Hubby was a few feet behind me. When he came near me, even he wouldn't stop the old man. Instead, my husband, too, listened to the man's lecture. The whole thing was hilarious.

Do I blame the man? No. For one thing, I am not sure he was all there, if you know what I mean. Second, none of what he was saying was original. He was repeating the stuff he'd heard from others.

Even drumbeaters find a rhythm of their own. Then, why can't we?

Oh, while I'm at it, my favorite online or in-print line from some people who are repeaters: "Speaking of which, you heard it here first." Lol!

Maybe, nothing's new under the sun.