Garbage In, Garbage Out.

When people hear the words diet and nutrition, inevitably an association with food is made. Consumption is traditionally through the mouth, then the digestive system extracts the good stuff and the balance is excreted at the other end. That’s a crude summary but accurate nonetheless.

The truth is, we are being incessantly fed, directly or indirectly, through our eyes and ears. The alarm goes off in the morning, most likely on the phone. After a quick tap on the snooze button, a frantic check for received messages, texts, likes on our latest social media posts and breaking news, before exiting the bed. Another check over breakfast, during the commute to work (if using public transport) and as frequently as possible throughout the day. Repeat this pattern in reverse on the journey home, over dinner and into bed.

The content? Rarely edifying, inevitably depressing. Sure there are clips of cute animals doing cute things to be found. But police brutality, murder, falsified statistics, child cruelty, lies, corruption, product placement ads from companies that have been listening in to your conversations through the week are the norm. This week, I had an ad from a Rwandan Arts and Crafts company appear on my Twitter feed. I had been discussing the Rwandan Genocide several times on air this week with guests on a talk radio show I host. Coincidence? Maybe. Shocking? No, I’m desensitised to it now. Figure they are going to spy on me one way or the other, so carry on oblivious. Sound familiar?

So what do we do? Someone once told me about garbage in, garbage out. This was in relation to food consumption, we are what we eat. However it applies top our mental and emotional diet also, if not even more so. It’s hard to smile after seeing 9 cops shoot what turns out to be an unarmed man with mental health issues dead in a hail of gunfire. Then follow up with and extra two execution style shots when he dropped to the road like a sack of sand. Knowing that they will possibly walk free, while his widow howls on air holding their young child and cries for ‘justice.’

We all want to be liked and peer approval is important. Not essential, but important. Your latest post on social media bombs. Hardly any views, no comments and certainly no likes. So you turn to chocolate for the dopamine hit, getting fatter and more depressed.

What are you feeding yourself? Take back control of you eye and ear gates. How? That’s for another article. I’m trying to provoke thought and plant a seed here. An organic one of course, that will grow into something that can be consumed, without coating in batter and deep frying.

Don’t pass the salt.

Rick.