I’ll admit that the last two posts were kinda lame – what I
have watched and what I have read? Really? Who cares?
They were just easy posts to write, compiling data from the
past year, but now it is back to business – no more slacking off, no more
fluff, no more … I guess no more of what
I usually write.
I have recently been sloughing through War and Peace (I’ve
finally gotten past page 1,000 but still have about 700 pages to go). I have to
admit it is a very good book that really captures a great deal of the horrors
of war and the indifference of the upper echelon of society (among about a
billion other things). While a great battle is waged just outside of Moscow, a
married woman is flirting with two men, promises to marry both of them, and
becomes Catholic in order that she can have her marriage annulled. How’s that
for a twist? Become Catholic to end a marriage. In the book the whole scenario
is very interesting for many people – it is the gossip of Moscow and
Petersburg.
I think the connection between tabloid entertainment and the
horrors of reality is obvious. News is made when McDonald’s re-releases the
McRibb or when someone’s marriage doesn’t last very long but not when people
starve to death, etc. This is fluff, bread and circus kind of entertainment
that appeases the masses so as to avoid the festering wounds of society. Yuck.
However, no one likes a dour, sour-puss kind of person. This
is the person who is so involved in all of the suffering of the world that just
to be in their presence is its own kind of suffering. Know anyone like that?
Activists, tree-hugging kind of Christians (and other
do-gooders) again and again remind us that we need to consider the other (in a
Lacanian, Buber kind of way). I agree that if we are only focused on ourselves
then we are not fully living. Yet I don’t think I would argue that those who
focus on pulp news are not focusing on themselves. We have a lot of
distractions, crappy, enamoring distractions that keep us from knowing
ourselves. So then the guilt comes that we need to help others and we don’t
even know who we are and all we have to talk about is the soft-core snuff that
passes for television.
Take some time to figure out who you are. Take care of
yourself, get to know yourself in a substantial way and then start to consider
others. Go for a walk. Read a book. Bake a cake. Etc, etc. This is a
selfishness that isn’t so bad and may actually lead to something good. Hmm,
maybe it is time for me to think more about myself…
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