Viewing America from the Sidelines
Viewing the good ‘ol U.S. of A from countries way, way over there is quite peculiar. Amazing at times, but confusing the other times. There are a lot of things happening here and there — but USA always takes the biggest piece of pie on the news. And how come anyone blame that? They are a superpower country, filled with A-list celebrities and world’s greatest athletes and the source of perhaps Top 50 richest person in the world. It’s great, but sometimes…it’s not.
Let me rephrase. Here in Indonesia, “Black Lives Matters” still takes a hot argumentation — some of us locals have been quite racist towards our Melanesian, Papuan friends…calling them names similar to those African-American has gone through. Some agreed, some other said that putting both of them under the same movement is a sign of ignorance itself. Another issue, such as Bill Gates producing vaccines with microchips inside of it makes people go crazy. Some says that it has happened years ago, and they can probably track you right now on your very own smartphone. These are all social phenomena that’s massive — it touches souls all around the world and gives us all a platform ( finally! ) to speak what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s a chance to gain equity and human rights, it’s a goal. It’s long due for a global change!
That is, great, by all means.
And what’s not? The people using the platform as a need for them to climb up the fame ranks, politicians using this civil unrest to publish egotistical, undebatable rules and laws, people who mistook this chance to do something sinister or evil…that’s not great. That’s not great at all. Viewing USA on a sideline means you get to talk about it among your peers and families — but never experience it yourself. In my opinion, you are both allowed to give opinion and not allowed to give opinion. Like I said, it’s…confusing.
Speaking about these issues will never amount to anything substantial if it happened somewhere else far away and yet, you turn the other cheek to similar issue near you just because you don’t want to do the deed. I’d say, you have to pick your battles. Not everything is worth my time reading if I’m not interested in it in the first place and not every news about all the little things should be in your spacious brain. It just clutters you, so much. After hearing so much murders, your brain became desensitized and thought if maybe the next day twenty people died, it counts as an accident, not a national tragedy. No matter how “bad” or “good” the accident is.
But let’s say I’m a fan of basketball. Do I enjoy getting news about my favorite team? Of course! Am I being ignorant to not changing my sport channel into news that not everybody should know? No! You’re just being selective with your battles. Not to mention the best league of basketball also comes from the USA. So watching from the sidelines as a watcher is good! But, you want to get down to the road and riot against greedy corporation that steals all your coworker’s money? Also good!
Watching USA from the sidelines has been became a topic of trend…every few months or years, we turn our head to look the President’s new rules, Hollywood stars divorcing whom, and a lot of things. Now if you remembered some ( or all ) of those things, does that thing gives peace to your brain? Or happiness? Or content? If no,
Then you have a better chance of living a good life just ignoring the useless noise around you after all.
Disclaimer: This opinion is purely mine, and I did not represent anything or anyone nor does this article meant to disrespect anyone in the process.
