My wife and I were sitting on the couch one evening a little bit ago and a subject came up that lead to a pretty interesting conversation. Despite our previous plans to skip this season, we found ourselves watching Big Brother. I know, I know, we said we weren't going to watch it and I really believed my wife when she said that this time, but then after about a week she fired up the DVR and started playing the next episode.
I said wait, "I thought we weren't going to watch it this season?" She said something to the effect of "I didn't mean it".
So here we are.
If you have ever watched Big Brother, you probably already know that it is a reality TV show. As is the case with most reality TV, everything is over the top and amplified. Especially when you have a group of people in such a small space together for an extended period of time. Emotions are heightened and things can spiral out of control.
Anyway, we were watching the episode and is usually the case, something happened and a member of the cast somehow felt slighted, so they felt it would be a good idea to have a house meeting and "clear the air". This is where @mrsbozz made the comment. She said something to the effect of "People have no filter these days, why does everything need to be aired out or discussed in front of everyone?".
See, we come from a time when it was absolutely acceptable to bury your emotions and bite your tongue.
Apparently somewhere along the line people felt that wasn't healthy or some other such nonsense and now here we are publicly writing rants on Facebook or clearing the air on national TV over stuff that is really quite insignificant.
By the way, are you confused by the photos in this post so far? I typed in the word "angry" into my Google Photos storage and these are just a couple of the photos it came up with. Trust me, I am just as confused as you. I kind of understand the shark, but the tree has me baffled!
This whole idea of clearing the air when there is a misunderstanding reminds me of the Seinfeld episode "The Strike". While Festivus is a real made up holiday created by author Daniel O'Keefe to celebrate on December 23rd bucking the commercialized tradition that is Christmas, there are pieces of the episode where they took some creative liberty.
Actually, the episode was co-written by O'Keefe's son, so while pieces of it may have been made up, I wonder how much is personal experiences as a child influenced the episode. One such made up aspect of Festivus was "the airing of the grievances".
This practice involves letting everyone at your nice gathering know all the ways they have disappointed you in the past year. While it makes for some good comedy, I can't imagine this practice is any more healthy than just keeping things bottled up.
It's one of those cases where it might make you feel better, but does it really resolve anything? Despite growing up in that era where it was better to just keep your mouth shut, I often find myself falling into the trap of the more modern practice of seeking justice.
I think it's another one of those cases were people feel that fairness needs to be implemented and as I have discussed in my blog before, life isn't fair. There are some things you don't get to know the answers to, and some things that just happen without explanation. People are allowed not to like other people. It's how you handle that knowledge that determines now miserable or how enjoyable your life will be.
Trust me, my wife and I didn't solve the world's problems in that short conversation while watching Big Brother, but it definitely shined a light on interesting behaviors that seem to be the norm these days.
Just because you think it or feel it doesn't mean you need to share it.
But perhaps I should be taking my own advice as I share this here on HIVE....
My Sports Account - @bozz.sports
