by Ben Howard
Everybody has been on a bad vacation. That one family trip where everything felt
tense all the time and you were waiting for something to spill over. That one road trip where your dad yells that
he’s going to pull over to the side of the road, and then actually does
it. That one trip where you or your
brother or your sister just decide that everything unequivocally sucks because
you feel like being an angst-ridden hormonal teenager.
I’m pretty sure Twitter is the angst-ridden hormonal teenager
of the 2012 London Olympics.
Now, lest this post devolve into a kids-get-off-my-lawn
curmudgeonly rant, I’ve definitely added my voice to the misanthropic murmur of
social media over the last few days and weeks, but I’m starting to feel
uncomfortable with it. I’m starting to
feel uncomfortable and tense about the aggressive snark and cynicism which has
started to ensnare my generation’s observations of the surrounding world.
On Friday, I watched the opening ceremonies with some
friends. To be fair it was gorgeous and
epic, but at the same time it was weird and at points incomprehensible. There was a salute to the National Health
Service, which was weird, and a scene where 200 flying Mary Poppins (Poppi?)
battled a 100 foot inflatable Voldemort, which was weird, but awesome.
However, when I got home I checked Twitter and Facebook before
I went to sleep and was barraged by a series of tweets and status updates about
how much the ceremonies sucked and how stupid it was and it was all so…predictable.
The last few days have been filled with bitter tweets about
Olympic spoilers, and rants about why NBC won’t show events live, but instead
saves the best events for prime time (the best response is Will Leitch’s column here.)
To be honest, I don’t care.
It isn’t important. I just want
to enjoy a worldwide spectacle. I just
want to be a part of the fun.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how difficult I find it
sometimes to be authentically happy and how rare and beautiful it can be to
just enjoy something without deconstructing it to find deeper meaning. However, in the world I live in, and likely
the one you live in too if you’re reading this, it’s hard to escape the
cynicism. It’s hard not to breathe pithy
statements that border on bitterness and arrogance.
I’ve often felt the same way about the church. A few years ago I got to the point where I
could never leave a church feeling anything but bitterness and spite. Some of it was arrogance, and some of it was
pain. There’s a thin line between making
fun of something because you love it, which gives us a healthy perspective and
a dash of humility, and making fun of something because you hate it.
I wonder when we know that we’ve crossed the line and I
wonder how we get back. Thankfully
through the love and support of friends and a healthy church community, I can
get more out of a service than anger and frustration. They blessed me with that gift of grace. But how do we move a society that way? How do you we help a society embrace beauty even
when its flawed? Or is cynicism
justified and I’m just being naïve? I’d
love to know your thoughts because I’m still working this one out.
Peace,
Ben
When he isn't channeling Andy Rooney for a post about the Olympics, Ben spends his time in a field with Snoopy waiting for the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. Any day now. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87.