Empathy: (noun)
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. I’m including this definition because I’m not sure many of us know what it is. I mean, sure, we understand the gist of the word, but the idea and the application of the word are very, very different concepts than the word itself. We, as a society, know how to pronounce and define, but not how to perform and demonstrate this known, yet strange concept of empathy. Empathy is one of the essential factors in the equation of compassion, an equation that defines how we live. If empathy is removed from the formula, or misapplied, the entire equation warps, and our lives are greatly impacted. And, over time, empathy has been removed, or at the very least, our standards for empathy have been lowered exponentially. We see it every day: when someone drops their books in the hallway and nearly everyone just skirts around the victim, throwing them a sideways glance, slightly embarrassed for them, though at the same time glad it wasn’t them, and mildly irritated for the inconvenience this victim of pure luck has caused them, the passerby. Or when a pedestrian attempts to cross the road, yet no car is willing to pause their precious schedule for a mere minute in order to let the pedestrian pass. Empathy is an essential part of life, but we choose to exclude that from our lives, focusing on ourselves and our own lives, excluding others, save for when we find them useful. If we cannot find it in ourselves to reach out to others even when it doesn’t benefit us, we cannot progress as a society. Ever.
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It's no secret that NBC has been the leading producer of comedy shows on prime-time for the last two decades: with shows like Friends, The Office, 30 Rock, Cheers, and Seinfeld. All of these critically acclaimed shows - which are not the only comedies NBC has to offer - are branded "Sophisticated Comedy": smart jokes with complex characters that are easily relatable. All of these shows have won awards and had (mostly) great ratings - so great that no other channel put any comedies on Thursday nights because that was the NBC Comedy Block.
But if they were doing so well with these smart comedies, why are they refusing to make anymore - and keep the current ones on the air? The simple answer - FOX and ratings. In that past few years, FOX has introduced three new comedies that rival anything on NBC right now: New Girl, The Mindy Project, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine - funny enough, these shows star or have regular guest stars that we're on NBC's biggest comedy, Saturday Night Live. FOX has made it very clear that they are moving away from their short-lived family comedies to smarter comedies. And NBC is making it very easy for them to take over as the new leader of comedy.
The categories that we'll be sorting writing into include book reviews, poetry, short stories, news articles, editorials, etc.. That way, we can include posts in multiple categories instead of re-posting or accidentally making it more difficult to find. When you submit a piece of writing, we'd appreciate if you could please specify which categories you feel are applicable to your writing.
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