Are You Adding Weight or Light to Your World?

Why Adding Light Matters

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

What Does It Mean to Add Weight or Light?

With all the Charlie Brown wah-wah-wah blaring from nearly every news outlet, I started thinking about my contribution to this clangor. Then I thought about the implications of story and the way stories are told. The result of this puttering led to the question each of us might ask: am I adding weight or light to the world?

By the world I mean your world. Yours and mine jointly, for it is our world to add light to. Or weight. Like many things that have consequences, it is a deliberate choice. But that doesn’t mean we are always aware of the consequences. Here is my initial offering. Let me know in the comments what you think.

…for it is our world to add light to. Or weight. Like many things that have consequences, it is a deliberate choice.

We all know the most pedestrian meaning of adding weight. I add pounds every time I go into the pantry to raid the cookies my husband insists on buying. The literal meaning is to make a thing heavier or denser. We swath our homes with heavy fabrics in sober colors.

In relationships, we have all experienced a twist in our lives that brings gravity to a moment in time. We have conversations about hard truths that raise difficult emotions that weigh on our minds and hearts.

And we write about these on empty pages. Brush them onto a blank canvas. Sculpt them from formless clay. Translate them through dance or song or performance. We add weight by using darker tones, longer sentences, exquisite detail. We introduce graver stakes and consequences. We strive to pull our audience into a sense of some substance.

Weight conveys a sense of strength and groundedness. There is no room for “pie-in-the-sky” thinking or feeling. It is all kidding aside, it’s time to get serious. Really, what are you doing with your life?

But this can become burdensome if overdone, and most of us are overwhelmed with the one-sidedness of no cookies, Victorian curtains, hard truths expressed harshly, and a diet of only dark art.

We can add light literally by switching on a lamp or opening a window shade. We can choose to paint our rooms in light colors, changing the mood of our environment. We open the refrigerator and select fruit and yogurt instead of the cookies.

Even the heaviest situation can be infused with optimism, levity, or a perspective that diminishes its weight. Humor in a tense room, finding a compliment among the criticism, or substituting curiosity for judgment are strategies that work to lighten weighty emotions.

Even the heaviest situation can be infused with optimism, levity, or a perspective that diminishes its weight.

Artists create a lighter feeling by leaving more white space. Writers use witty dialogue, absurdity, eccentric characters, satire, and fantasy as narrative devices to create a feeling of lightness in their stories. Performers use costumes, music, lighting, and choreography to control mood. Sculptors may choose whimsical shapes or bright colors.

All of this lightness conveys feelings of hope, a sense of clarity, and possibility. The sky is the limit. But if this view tilts too far towards Pollyanna-ism, all we have is avoidance of situations, sugarcoating, and hollowness.

It is no great surprise that weight and light work best in tension. The magic is in knowing which to add when. Heavy conversation sometimes needs a shaft of light to keep people from sinking and a sparkling moment sometimes needs a little weight to ground it.

Photo by Buddha Elemental 3D on Unsplash

Adding Weight to World Events

Adding weight to world events means framing them in a way that increases their perceived importance, gravity, and consequence so that people feel the impact more deeply. Take the events more seriously. Understand their place in the larger story. It is not about making events heavier than they are. It is about giving them context, depth, and meaning so they don’t pass by as just another headline.

Anchoring stories in history is a powerful way to link today’s events to past moments. Today’s protest can be framed as part of a lineage of struggle and change.

Statistics tell only one part of a story that has a human side. Honing in from astounding numbers of people affected by a disaster to an individual displaced family conveys the human stakes and we feel the burden more acutely.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Making clear how one event connects to many others is a powerful way to show snowball effects and unintended consequences. These ripple effects become the true story.

Witness accounts carry moral and emotional gravity. As observers or readers, we are thrust inside instead of experiencing it as an abstract. The witness’s voice is both elevated and validated in that moment of time. And we come to an understanding of a thing we might never have otherwise known.

Finally, there are many opportunities to position an event as a test of values. This moral framing questions whether we will stand by and watch the event unfold, or intervene. The event itself is weighty enough, but the challenge lies heavy in our hearts and minds.

Why does adding weight matter? Our world moves fast. The media cycle is full of noise with events blurring together. Adding weight helps ensure critical moments are remembered, acted upon, and learned from. Without weight, these events risk being dismissed as “just another news day.” With weight, there is a call to action. A turning point.

Isn’t there?

Adding Light to World Events

Adding light to world events means presenting them in a way that offers hope, clarity, resilience, or possibility, even when the events themselves are heavy. It is not the same as minimizing the severity or sugarcoating the facts. It is about making space for understanding, progress, and human connection. So people do not feel paralyzed by the weight.

Adding light to world events…is not the same as sugarcoating the facts. It is about making space for understanding, progress, and human connection.

If we look, we can always find acts of humanity. Kindness or bravery or solidarity in the face of crisis is our default response. It is a matter of noticing these gems among the rubble.

Long ago I had a boss who told me not to come to him with a problem unless I brought two or three solutions along with me. Pairing the problem with what is being done or with how people can help is an effective method of lifting the weightiness of a situation.

So much of the heaviness and darkness in our world comes from noise and confusion. Mixed messages, muddled meanings, and secrecy burden us with the task of sifting for the truth. Crafting transparent messages communicates openness. It lifts the flap on the tent of possibility. And hope. Hope shines with a brilliant wattage.

This wattage is exemplified in the celebration of resilience. Resilience found in the stories of everyday people facing life-or-death circumstances. Communities adapting to events beyond their control, but coming together to support one another to rebuild. This is grassroots-adding-light.

Not to diminish the urgency of events, we can highlight whatever agency exists. We can dig for some small part of the situation we can make better and concentrate on making that bigger. Bring it out into the world’s attention. Give it a voice.

Why does it matter to add light to the world? If we are bombarded by stories of shock and awe, death and destruction, we are kept in a state of compassion and despair. These states do not encourage problem-solving. They encourage doomscrolling and eating cookies. Using any of these strategies reminds us that even in dark situations, there are threads of progress, courage, or beauty worth noticing.

An Example

To illustrate, we can frame the September 2022 landing of Hurricane Ian in both a weighted and light-infused tone. The same underlying facts apply, but emphasis and emotions shift.

Weighted Tone - framed in terms of gravity, depth, consequence

Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on September 28, 2022 as a Category 4 storm with winds exceeding 150 mph, flattening entire neighborhoods and submerging streets beneath record-breaking storm surges. 149 people lost their lives in the state, with property damages topping $113 billion-making Ian the costliest hurricane in Florida’s history. Rescue crews waded through waist-deep water to reach stranded residents, while tens of thousands endured weeks without power or clean water. For many, Ian was a turning point-one that exposed vulnerabilities in coastal communities already battling rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes.

We can see how the use of statistics to convey human and financial losses conveys the seriousness of the story. We also feel the impact of the storm as part of a larger pattern of climate vulnerability which encourages reflection on both personal and systemic issues.

Light-Infused Tone - framed in terms of hope, resilience, possibility

Hurricane Ian tested Florida’s resolve, but stories of courage and community quickly emerged in its wake. Volunteer groups rallied using small boats to deliver food, water, and ice to those trapped by floodwaters. Others helped residents connect with resources and temporary housing, and assisted with FEMA and SBA applications. Volunteer groups provided hot meals. Charging stations were set up. Neighbors checked on neighbors and the currency of the day was hope. Contractors got to work repairing the severed causeway, creating temporary access in 15 days. Bucket brigades bearing license plates from a panoply of states rolled in to rebuild the destroyed electrical grid. While the storm caused immense loss, it also sparked a wave of generosity and new thinking about coastal living that will shape recovery and planning for many years.

Human resilience, kindness, and a focus on solutions are highlighted here, without sugarcoating the seriousness of the hurricane. Losses are acknowledged, but agency and recovery are in the foreground. We are left with a sense of forward motion rather than paralysis.

Both versions contribute to our comprehension of the storm. Both add to our emotional understanding. Neither story as a stand-alone gives us the full picture.

Hybrid Tone - blends gravity with resilience and possibility

Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast with 150-mph winds and record-breaking storm surges, destroying thousands of homes, and claiming over 140 lives. Entire neighborhoods were reduced to rubble, with some homes washed out to sea. Millions were left without power and clean water. Yet in the storm’s aftermath, resources were quickly mobilized to rescue residents from flooded homes. Volunteers from across the nation arrived with equipment and tarps to cover the many blown roofs. A local hotel became a gathering place where community leaders and residents shared information, resources and hope. Ian left scars that will take years to heal, but it also revealed a deep reservoir of solidarity. Proof that in the face of devastating loss, communities can come together to rebuild stronger than ever.

The balance here works because there is weight from the facts of the event and the scale of the loss contrasted with light coming from human action, compassion, and forward vision. We take an emotional journey that begins with devastation, leading to action that inspires resilience.

One day at a time, one person at a time, can we add more light to our world?

Last Word

If you are looking to sprinkle a bit of lightness into your media diet, here is a good place to begin:

• Good News Network

• Only Good News Daily

• DailyGood

• The Optimist Daily

• The Happy Broadcast (youth-friendly)

• Grist

• Greater Good Magazine

Love, Alice

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