"My mind is so full of things to say that I can't decide on one thing!"
or
"I'm saving all of my smart entries for NaBloPoMo."
or
"I have been doing such interesting/significant things with my life that I have been exhausted by the end of the day and can only collapse the second I walk through my door."
The truth is that these are partly right. My mind is
Mostly though, my voice is gone at the moment.
Last night at the salon, many interesting points were made, and though I agreed with most of them, I found myself opposed to some of them. There were a few times where I had to hold my tongue and literally look at the floor so that I wouldn't fly across the room at some of the folks who were making some fairly convoluted assertions, put my finger in their faces and yell, "You are all ignorant ass hats! No wonder our _________ (fill in the blank with country/education system/people) is (are) struggling!" But I didn't, much to the relief of Rich and the Fougses.* It seems that most of my opinions are reactionary these days.
Paula, one of the ladies who attends the salon regularly, who speaks in a dramatic Southern accent, elevates her voice in such a way that you want to stand on the chair and yell, "O Captain, my Captain" before you realize that what she's talking about is the distinction between frozen corn dogs and fresh ones. (She has that kind of command in her voice..) Anyway, Paula said something that made a lot of sense to me last night. She was specifically talking about the overabundance of information. That we (and specifically younger generations) are stimulated by such an information overflow - from the news, the Internet, texting, gaming, etc.-, that we have a difficult time sorting out what is relevant and true from that which is nonsensical and bogus. We are subject to millions of sound bites, so many that our brains are overloaded and our actions become stagnant as a result - as in we succumb to the couch for TV premiere week in order to have a distraction from the hourly barrage of information.
I think she's right.
At least that's what happens to me. I literally shut down my brain, and have done so everyday for the last few weeks. But then I get angry with myself for being complacent or uninterested and that makes me very reactionary or snippy to varying opinions. That and I won the "I'd Rather Do It Myself" award in 4th grade, so my ego has decided that the world is idiotic and I could do a better job of it. "Just give me the flippin' country, Dubbya. No. Don't say anything. Just hand it over. Now, Dubbya. Don't make me count to three." And, really, what do I know about anything? My snippy reactions are, of course, juvenile and silly. So, I just stop and wallow in my own self-defeat. "Keep your trap shut, Ginger."
And I do.
*But I did have one lash out when someone nonchalantly said that the Koran teaches people how to be terrorists. I held my composure and used my teacher voice to say that that wasn't true, and that it was an ignorant assertion to assume so. (And these are well-educated people!!)
3 comments:
I remember one of my great lit teachers defined a classic as a text that you get more from each time you read it. The Simpsons is my classic--so I've just found in its watching that I know why Marge makes that throaty moaning sound when she hears something she doesn't like. I've just begun doing it accidentally and didn't realize what it was until I watched an old Simpsons episode. I'm learning this art you speak of where you don't pop off at everyone's opinions or ideas. But what I end up doing instead is the Marge groan. Accidentally.
And I wish Dubya would give you the country, too.
Definitely there's an info overload
One way of looking at it is there are three qualitative tiers to the field: information, knowledge and wisdom
too much of he lower field denigrates the development of the upper ones
so, in the absence of a grounding in essential wisdom, lots of undirected knowledge denigrates it, ie the possibility of wisdom gets decreased (as buddha said: knowledge cleaves a fools head)
and in the absence of essential knowledge, lots of information tends to do the same, denigrating the development of essential knowledge and, even more so, wisdom
we now live in an age of information overload, so as a species we are so rich in information, not knowing what's true what's false or being able to easily discern who or what to trust, or indeed what is really good for us (a process much abetted by the advertising industry and all the other scumbag capitalist wankers) that we really can't see the wood for trees, writ global
the good news is however that this problem has its own solution built into it: basically with some discernment, and subtlety of approach, over time the info mountain can be chipped away at, allowing the human face to collectively winnow the very best knowledge, and, by extension the ultimate and essential wisdom, from the all the rubbish that presently obscures it
unless that is we continue to adopt the headless chicken approach, which is simply to not pay attention to the message: we must now work to change EVERYTHING
as (headless chicken) now appears to be the case in the majority of the populace
men and women are said to go mad in herds but recover their sanity one by one,
or, as charles bukowski once said 'never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups'
m
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