Glue Ear (otitis media with effusion)

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The first time I heard of glue ear, I was in my second year of undergrad in London, England. The Educational Psychologist who was presenting some case studies to us marketed this condition as "a little girl who simply didn't hear while she was at school." I thought, "well that's strange" but I assumed that glue ear was the name given to a condition where (mostly) children became selectively hearing impaired. That wasn't entirely accurate - actually instead of just not hearing certain things of their choosing, glue ear or otitis media with effusion is a condition where the middle ear fills up with fluid and the person (usually a child) suffers temporary hearing loss. I liked the first definition I had wrongly perceived from my lecturer at university, because I think that we all suffer with a little otitis media with effusion at some point in our lives.

I relate to the bear in the comic above, because sometimes I just feel as though I'm fading into a mindless routine, and I hate the idea of sameness. I feel like occasionally, our emotions fill up with the fluid of routine, and we can no longer hear our own hearts. Bear with me as I wax philosophical, but what if the thing that made us miserable was that we couldn't hear ourselves any more?

There are hundreds of papers and research articles that talk about the disconnection and over-stimulation that is our social media existence, several of which will tell us that both disengagement and over-engagement are potentially risky in terms of your individual social development. The fact that everything and everyone is at the tip of our fingers, and that it can produce a kind of paralysis (sensory overload) is not a new concept. I am not going to go over what many have already said, but I will ask you what you gather on a daily basis from your plugs into the world around you?

Before I say anything else, I want to admit something to you all. When I started writing this post, the existential bear laying on the forest floor thinking about life was me. I was feeling a little low, I was questioning my place in the world, and kind of spiralling. This happens to many of us. What I would like to suggest is that emotional glue ear (glue heart, perhaps?) is like those moments where you just can't seem to feel right, you just can't seem to see what is right in front of you and appreciate what you have now.

I've decided that today, I'm not going to have much to say other than if you have a little glue heart going on, I want you to know that you are ABSOLUTELY NOT alone,  and because it rarely is helpful for someone to say "look at all the good things in your life!!" I'm going to say that I see good in you. We all need a little encouragement sometimes, and that's okay to admit. Maybe I know you, and maybe I don't, but I STILL see good in you. God sees good in me, and I feel it. My loved ones see good in me, and I feel it. I believe that you exist because there is good in you. I see good in this world, and I want to show it to you.

That's all.

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