Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Cable TV - and suddenly, everyone has ideas from all over the world.
The world has become so intrinsically interconnected in the last decade that we are bombarded with buckets of information from a variety of sources. The media has essentially created a giant sweater to wrap the world in, stringing us within its well-woven confines.
Watching a talk show a few days back, I was struck by two pieces of speech that really made me think about our society and the little worlds we've built ourselves.
The first one was strangely from the hilariously funny and eccentric Russell Brand who was being interviewed about his success and fame.
When growing up, Brand said he'd always chased the dream of being rich and famous: "I think that's because we live in a culture that celebrates fame and commerce and consumerism and money, so that if you don't have those things, you feel like you're not enough," he said.
Brand went on to talk about how the social stereotypes rampant in today's media ostracises us and makes us feel 'out of it'. This little impromptu speech, besides being slightly poetic, really hit home for me as it encapsulated 21st Century life so well.
Often when we're asked why we study so hard for good grades, we reply it's to get into a great university.
When we are further prodded into the reason for a good university, we reply it's necessary to get a good job.
"A good job?" they further inquire. "Well, to get a fat cheque, pay the bills and drive a fast car," you reply in an almost matter-of-fact voice.
The sad truth of the matter is that this flawed idea of success is accepted, practiced and sowed into the minds of children from a very young age; so much so that we've just created an endless hamster wheel of running around in a pointless, predictable existence. And, without the designer watch and the latest gadgets, people are hardly considered at the top of the society food chain.
This makes me incredibly frustrated as success is much bigger an entity than something that can fit on a business card or a pay cheque. Like Brand said, we celebrate fame and money, more than altruism or skill.
To me being successful is synonymous to achieving something that makes you truly happy ... like going to university because you love to learn, or, in a bigger spectrum, perhaps helping with rehabilitation of displaced natives in Haiti, like Sean Penn.
I understand that it's human tendency to crave recognition. But acquiring the attention you lust for, does not make you a successful human being.
In a way, the media is to blame for promoting these false notions - which brings me to the second speech, by Portia de Rossi, that struck me. In her interview about her struggle with anorexia, she recounted a heartbreaking tale of how she used to measure herself in comparison to mannequins.
Alarmingly, even when she dropped to an incredibly low 80-something pounds, she said that the mannequins were even skinnier. These mannequins, unconsciously, play out as models to women around the world.
They're there everywhere - on display windows, at malls, in dress boutiques. They subliminally send out such wrong messages of being skinny or even worse than stick-thin. The image they create and the idea they push into the minds of people everywhere is a serious issue that has to be dealt with.
The media has created stereotypes that have seriously emotionally injured people worldwide.
Whether its mannequins or a rapper on television advertising a life of 'bling' and 'all the pretty women', there appears to be an invisible envelope in our increasingly interconnected world that is constantly belittling us and making perfectly wonderful people feel inadequate.
There is no better solution than to plug your ears to these lies and I'll leave Russell Brand to sum it up in his thoughtful, beautiful choice of words: "I think we live in a culture that makes me think: 'Oh, I'm a little bit too fat or I'm too thin, or I'm not right and I don't fit in'. And, I think that increasingly I've realised is I've tried to change and I've tried to adapt and amend and pursue these ambitions that ultimately, everybody has beauty within themselves, and if you find this and accept this, then you will be happy regardless of external attributes or material things."
