Superficiality

Superficiality… Is it an easy way out or lack of interest - is it positive or negative? 

Have you ever wondered about superficiality?

What is superficiality? What do you think about superficiality, is it a natural thing or just a simple habit?

Superficiality is an easy way out or lack of interest? Is it positive or negative?

Superficiality - Flickr Betsy Stirratt

It is said that "The principle of superficiality versus depth" has pervaded Western culture since at least the time of Plato: "The dialectic of truth and appearance", as the surface image of the latter "competes with what Plato designates for us beyond appearance as being the Idea".

I was thinking of superficiality - this (social) issue while watching a bit of TV and noticed that on main local channels they promote an easy type of people mostly for commercial reasons.

So, we don't hear about a scientist, an artist, an impressive writer, an athlete, but we are suffocated with "plastic" images and worthless content serving ego and vanity. I'm sure those people do have their own value, but!

In fact, I'm confused! The system did a very good job with me, feeding me since childhood with all kind of principles, but also putting people on categories (sex, religion, social status, color, etc) while now is serving me and promoting the opposite items... and at the bottom line, it seems that superficiality prevails.

So, superficiality is it an easy way out or a lack of interest?

Is superficiality positive or negative?

I deem that superficiality is a very natural thing for all living creatures with the brain (humans and animals).

It is related to everything we are and do, including thinking, feeling, behaving, and much more.

Each individual has his/ her own characteristics which make him distinctive among others so, under certain conditions, the way how the mind is functioning, particular interests and actions differ for each individual and, they may exist similarities or common interests, but humans will not think and act always in a similar way.

On the other hand, superficiality is also a perception that turns it into a relative issue according to each person's character, perceptions, and use of managing various aspects that concern his actual life and evolution.

What to one person it may look as being superficial, for one may be partial involvement, for other a real concern and something totally different for another one.

Are moments when we are superficial with our own person, with people we met, in private aspects and business, on our daily life, attitude, projects, or anything else.

Superficiality - Flickr Yan Franca

In business - I cannot understand professionals doing their job based on a superficial approach but, are times when I'm wondering if we're not spending too much time to "polish" and do things close to perfection instead of just achieve that particular purpose and move ahead to the next task.

In daily life - I think that if people around us do care and are anxious about certain aspects or events that occurred in their life, and are willing to share their thoughts, opinions, or doubts with us, but we treat them with indifference and their problems and/ or whatever they feel to discuss with superficiality, we're losing communication and we may never understand what is happening in fact.

About the environment and any surrounding element part of our reality (I'd mention here vanished forests, polluted waters, luck in education and health system, neglected historical buildings and sites, forgotten writers, scientists or else, nowadays system focused on immediate interests despite, maybe, real problems and causes) - maybe at this point humanity should be more aware of potential damages as a result of their actions, forget about superficiality and do take some actions for future generations.

Without stooping toward superficiality, often it may be preferable to overcome too much seriousness and personal diligence to achieve our goals and just take things in an easy way to save and preserve our sanity/ health.

"It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought." - Aristotle

Superficiality... there is definitely a need for it!

Sometimes, in this world, we are too detailed both in doing tasks and in how we communicate with others and with each other every day.

Depth, no doubt, is necessary but, sometimes, superficiality is also necessary.

So, I presume there is a place for both.

Sometimes we need to have the freedom to be superficial or at surface level. It's part of how we take moments in for ourselves to ponder before we release our thoughts to the world.

However, in that sense, one could argue that superficiality is actually depth because it is simply part of the process which allows us, in the end, to communicate to others in the world as we take in something, ponder it, and appear to be responding only on the surface yet at the same time it is a necessary step that is needed to have more depth of response.

Superficiality in things we do is not always bad either.

Sometimes we need to have the freedom to do something only partway and not completely, which is a type of superficiality.

In this world, we are so consumed by doing and doing and doing that, sometimes, we do need to be free from that so that we can be non-superficial in other ways.

5 quotes about superficiality:

"Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"This is a world in which each of us, knowing his limitations, knowing the evils of superficiality and the terrors of fatigue, will have to cling to what is close to him, to what he knows, to what he can do. . ." - J. Robert Oppenheimer

"What is visible is not always a good measure - It is not about how tall the tree is, but rather how deep its root." - Hazem R Ahmed

"Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality." - Joyce Carol Oates

"Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative." - William S. Burroughs