“If you rebuke a mocker, you will only get a smart retort; yes, he will snarl at you. So don’t bother with him….”
Proverbs 9:7 (TLB)

I grew up with radio, and I loved it. Before the internet, and before television, radio changed the world. As a child, I wandered into the kitchen each morning to the news and commentary that my dad had playing on the kitchen radio. When I drove home from college in my Volkswagen Beetle, the AM radio was often my only companion. In college, my friend Craig and I did a morning show on the college radio station called The Shower Hour, and I briefly had pipe dreams of making my fortunes as a radio personality. In the early days of my actual career, I spent many hours in the car, and I spent those hours listening mostly to talk radio and sports radio.

Before social media, talk radio was one of the few public, social forums. Sports radio was a natural for the forum as there’s nothing that gets more people both distracted and excited as sports. I spent many hours listening to people spouting off over the radio.

But, here’s the thing I observed over time: Media is a system. Media is a business that is driven by advertising which depends on the number of listeners (or watchers, viewers, or clickers). To get those listeners, watchers, or clickers Media typically finds big, boisterous, lightning rod individuals (a.k.a. the aforementioned “personalities”) who will create a public buzz that will, in turn, attract more listeners, watchers, viewers, or clickers. In talk radio, and sports radio, the Media then feed everyday people and their “takes” to the personality who will then stir argument which the personality can mock or cut-short in order to spout their own buzz-creating opinions.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped listening, watching, and clicking.

I walked away from the game.

In today’s chapter, Wisdom speaks of the “mocker” who doesn’t really care what I think, and I couldn’t help but think of Media and their Personalities. They don’t really care what I think as long as I listen, watch, and click. And, if I make the mistake of letting the buzz stir me up so much that I enter the arena to disagree, then I will be mocked and snarled at and used to create more buzz which will stir more people to listen, or watch, or click.

I learned along the way that I prefer to listen quietly to worthwhile sources speaking knowledgeably about meaningful things, to contemplate what they say, and to then have a meaningful discussion about what is said with individuals I care about and who care about me, even if we respectfully disagree about the meaningful things.

My life is more peaceful.