Word Search

One of the first things I saw when I opened up my Facebook this morning, because that is my usual morning ritual, coffee and Facebook, was one of those word search thingies. You know, the ones that say “The first 3 words you see define your personality” or “will determine your life for the coming year” and the words are all things like connection or harmony or love. They are fairly harmless even though they are obviously bullshit, somewhat like astrology or even Tarot, which I dabble in occasionally.
But for some reason this morning it triggered me, I think it was the phrase ‘will determine your life for the coming year.’ These are just words that somebody put on paper. Sure, ‘love’ or ‘money’ or ‘family’ will be important in the coming year to almost everybody, and that’s why those words are included. It’s just a game, though, and the ubiquitousness of these games is an indicator that billions of people do not have anything truly important going on in their lives, and look for meaning in things like this.
In an interconnected world, the things that will have the greatest effect on our lives are the stability of our atmosphere, whether or not humanity is destroyed in a nuclear war, or sentient robots taking over the planet and eliminating us all so they can live in peace with the trees and the flowers.