False Starts

No, this post is not about the 2016 Olympics, although I think I watched more of these games than of any previous Olympiad. Rather I have in mind a number of posts I've begun recently and then never finished. It seems I get an idea, think it would make a good blog post, begin writing down my thoughts, and then become bored or bogged down. At that point I usually just save what I've written so that I can come back to it later and decide if there is any reason to continue or revise or simply just abandon the effort. I write these things mainly for myself, so if I'm boring myself, I figure what's the point.

Then this morning, while I was looking for something among my previous posts, I noticed all the drafts I'd saved but never finished. I even looked at one or two of them, only to confirm that indeed I was no longer interested or inclined to pursue that particular thread of thought. The other thing many of those posts have in common is a bit more personal information than I'm accustomed to sharing. I'm not usually interested in recording personal thoughts or reactions, which is why I have tended to steer clear of current events. Nothing is so stale as yesterday's news or my reactions to yesterday's news.

Sometimes, however, the news rises to some larger more universal significance. But that's not always easy to spot, especially before the fact. In hindsight many things that seemed quotidian and insignificant at the time will stand out as more momentous than we anticipated. But the reverse is also true. The fad of the moment often fades from memory more quickly than flavor in a stick of chewing gum, only to linger as nostalgia, or something even more ephemeral. I often recollect Thoreau's remark about newspapers:

And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, -- we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?

I tend to share that view, and would include especially the proliferating online tabloid outlets, which these days is just about all news sites:  how many times must we read about politicians who have lied or abused the public trust, celebrities who are unfaithful, or athletes who've taken illegal substances or beaten their wives? My other favorite quotation on this topic is from a Paul Simon tune: "I can gather all the news I need on the weather report."

Still, I do wonder if we may be living through one of those historical moments that future generations will look back on and ask how we missed it. And no I don't mean the current 2016 presidential election, although that may be indicative of the larger phenomenon. I'm thinking more of that reference to weather reports in Paul Simon's song. Perhaps we're all like the boy in his lyrics, thinking we have nothing to do today but smile, oblivious to what is happening all around us. We keep hearing the weather reports, but nothing seems to be sinking in. Bob Dylan also told us you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but I wonder if we're really tuned in to the direction those breezes are coming from and where they're taking us?

Ah, but perhaps this is just another false start, and all will be well. Still, it does seem that the water is already rising in some places, but we're still dry, so nothing to worry about, at least not yet.