Where’s The Respect?

All around us, people are operating on autopilot. Stress has gotten so high that we can no longer cope with it all. More times than not, you just feel like a stupid Happy Meal without the fun toy.

Everyone is following the trends being recommended by the social networking and business gurus so that they can go higher in the search engine results or become the go-to blog. I hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten until I started this blog. I’ve had a lot of really amazing and supportive comments, which I love. What bothers me are the people who think that spamming isn’t a bad thing because it’s helping their payday. Well, great for all of you spammers, but have you thought about it from the recipient’s point of view? It’s like getting those stupid cold calls during dinner. If you’re going to spam, at least use your real information so that we can find you.

Even a supposedly fun industry like comics isn’t immune to this profit virus. If you read anything about comic conventions, all you see is that Hollywood and Big Business have taken them over as though they were the experts. Sell more action figures, make the next superhero blockbuster, get those t-shirts out that will help to advertise OUR business. Can you corporations, please, start to show some respect for our intelligence. We’re all fans of the comic genre, and while we’re grateful for the attention, we just want to celebrate everything that gives us the opportunity to visit our favorite comic universe with hearing about your profit margins. We want to get to know our favorite creators as their true selves, without worrying whether they’ve given you enough PR plugs. We want to see movies made because the people actually cared about the story, without thinking about your future residuals.

Moving onto the business world, I read an article in the New Yorker that was being forwarded by Umair Haque of the Harvard Business Review. I don’t think that I have EVER felt my brain contract like it did while I read that article. Here’s an excerpt from page 1: “Almost everything is like a machine,” he told me one day when he was rambling on, as he often does. “Nature is a machine. The family is a machine. The life cycle is like a machine… And what is human nature, and how do you raise a community of people to run a business?” I almost gave up after reading this paragraph, but I persevered in hope that the story somehow showed improvement. Only, it didn’t get any better for the next 9 pages. I’ve come to realize that I’ll never grasp the purpose for the capitalistic point of view, which ignores everything about the human condition. Considering that our world has two ideologies (capitalism vs humanism) fighting for dominance, I know that there are many more who feel like I do.

If this is where our civilization is heading, I’m not so sure that we’re going to make it without a major cataclysm to society. The rumblings are already happening if you read mainstream news. If we could just remembered one major credo on our moral compass: Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Simply put, show your fellow humans a little respect and humanity.

• Think before you hit the send button.
• Think before you push more advice geared towards commercialization.
• Think before you send a friend or business link request to someone who you don’t even know. At least try to get to know them first before you do ask for something from them.
• Think about the words you leave behind on a comment section. If it’s hurtful, did you try to explain the reason that you’re upset without going on the attack?
• Think about the hard work that people put into their activities, and show some acknowledgement for their efforts.
• Do keep a dialogue open so that both sides can learn from an experience.
• Don’t insult a person’s beliefs or words until you’ve had a 2-way discussion to try for a compromise that everyone can live with.
• Don’t let desperation cloud your judgment.
• Just think…

This planet is not that large when you think about our current level of population. It’s not going to get any bigger when we’re at each other’s throats. Let’s learn to respect one another just a little so that our daily experiences can become a little more pleasurable. Why is that so hard to do? I don’t get it.