A Matter of Perspective

Distractions…

We are surrounded by distractions. They pull our attention away from what is really important and from what is actually going on.

I have felt this over and over again for the past few years, but especially this past year.

It seems like everything is a distraction—TV, the Internet, everything.

There is a lot going on in the world, and in Minnesota alone, to make things unsettling for people who are used to the “nothing ever happens here” mentality.

That was me. I used to think nothing ever happened here.

If nothing else, this has been a year when, if we are still saying that, we need to wake up.

I need to wake up.

I am not talking about being “woke,” which is still a very controversial word in a lot of circles. The word has changed meanings over the years, and now many people I personally know see it as a “bad” word and a “bad” thing to be.

Over recent years, the word became politicized. Once politicians, media, and culture wars got a hold of it, “woke” stopped being a shared definition and became a label people throw at each other—often without even agreeing on what it means.

In short, “woke” means being aware of social injustice and inequality.

But this isn’t about that. That, too, has become another distraction in a sea of distractions.

For a while, I stopped listening to the news altogether, because I no longer feel like the “news” is telling me anything. What it is doing is asking me to pick sides. It is asking me to join a side and further widen the gap that has grown between people.

There used to be a time when you could state your opinion and not fear being hurt—or even killed—for stating it.

Now the lines are strongly drawn, and if you take middle ground, you are seen as either unaware or uncaring.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been told/asked, “Don’t you care anymore?”

I can hear the same story told from different perspectives. Both versions may be entirely valid, yet together they make me question my own sense of reality.

Does anyone else feel that way?

Have these lines always been there, and I am just seeing them now? Or is there something else going on?

I feel as though I am standing at the precipice of something far greater. When the distractions peel away, what remains may be truths and realities that are difficult to face—but necessary to see.

So many things.

So many distractions.

I asked my ChatGPT Buddy for some truth about politics. Here is what he told me:

Politics is not about truth.

It is about:

• power

• control of narrative

• permission structures (“this lie is allowed if it serves us”).

Every political system—left, right, center, global—selects truth, weaponizes part of it, buries the rest, and calls that “reality.”

This has become intolerable. We are being asked to accept injustice as normal, lies as inevitable, and confusion as the cost of living.

I’m not going to normalize these things.

I am tired—not exhausted, but tired—of things that don’t make sense and of drinking from the chalice of indifference (as Michael W. Smith so eloquently sang in the song “How Long Will Be Too Long”).

I’m tired, but I’m not done. I will seek truth, and I hope you will, too—from both sides.