In Lieu Of...

While I'm trying to make time to get back to posting my own stuff, I want to share this from Alan Jacobs' One More Post About Twitter:

Twitter is even worse than I remember it being. The same compulsive temporary madness-of-crowds obsessions — sure, of course, Kobe Bryant is the most important person in your life, even though you’ve never mentioned him before and will probably never mention him again — but conducted with a greater intensity than I had remembered. Also, it seems that the reply function is now reserved as a dedicated performance space for sociopaths (if you don’t believe me, look at the first ten replies to any widely-read tweet).

What a horrible, horrible thing Twitter is. If the people who work there weren’t sociopaths themselves they’d shut the whole thing down for the good of humanity.

I couldn't have said it better, though regular readers know I have tried.

I like the part describing people who work at Twitter as sociopaths but would confine the accusation to those in charge. The workers are trying to earn a dollar and I too worked for an organization doing terrible things.

Have mercy on their wretched souls while people in charge burn in hell.

Said Before, Said Again

Alan Jacobs has a post wishing people would use his blog as he does. I get it, but I'm not all that thoughtful about how people read or use my blog. I like people reading it. I'd really like more people reading it, though not too many (too many readers costs money). Jacobs' blog is more scholarly than mine (every blog is more scholarly than mine) and it's scholarly use I think he's after. That's a fine enough idea, but I don't subscribe to it. I do subscribe to his blog, however, and if you like reading someone smart with whom you'll often disagree, I recommend it. Remember what Aaron Sorkin says:

"If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you." (Sports Night, "The Hungry And the Hunted")

The part from Jacobs I like most is his idea that a blog "allows you to revisit themes and topics." I was reminded of that this morning writing of listening to an album before work as I used to listen before high school. That felt familiar, like I was repeating myself. I kind of was. That feeling nagged me through the writing, but I hit publish without searching for the older post and felt no remorse. Why not revisit ideas?

Years ago, I stopped subscribing to Runner's World because of their repetition (and their whorish devotion to Nike et al). The annual "How To Run Your First 5K" or "This Is Your Marathon Year" articles recycled not just an idea or two but what felt like whole issues. That kind of repetition is deadly dull.

Jacobs' repetition is a returning to ideas in order to more fully think them through. That's good repetition. Mine is a half-assed version of that and hopefully nothing like Runner's World. My two posts have only a passing connections: the song, wondering what I did as a kid while the song played, comparing an awful teaching job with my exciting new job. The biggest repetition is in the tone of the ending. That repetition I regret.

If that's as bad as it gets, I'll keep repeating, though I hope I'll think of something different to say tomorrow, something new, preferably with an ending that sounds like nothing else I've written recently.

Isn't It Romantic?

Alan Jacobs is a good thinker. In this post he's describing the decline of baseball's enjoyment as the game becomes much more efficient and business like. This is Moneyball, pure and simple. Jacobs isn't demanding that Major League Baseball go backward, and he doesn't use this word, but I bet he'd be okay with a lot less business and a return to romance.

I was reminded of this New York Times piece by Tim Wu, "The Tyranny Of Convenience" in which he questions the notion that convenience is even a good thing. I like that he uses the word tyranny in that title. Again, we sacrifice romance for convenience, profit, and efficiency. In the process, more often than we might like to admit, we lose.

Romance? Really? That's what we're after?

I know, I know. It sounds hokey, but consider for a moment the best things in our lives and they will all have to do with romance and romantic notions. All our higher order ideals are romantic, characterized by, or suggestive of an idealized view of reality. Jacobs is admitting that players, owners, and the league itself are all within their rights to want more money, but there's nothing romantic about that idea. Wu understands the desire and need for convenience, but the romantic idea it would free us from drudgery and lead to utopia is belied by the convenience of email, texting, and Slack. No romance there and certainly no utopia.

Yesterday I wrote about my desire to be a writer. Not a teacher who writes or an anything else that also rights, but a writer. There might not be money in it and the process will be inconvenient as hell for my family. But I'll tell you one thing: it's romantic as all get out and I'm in love with that.

Head In The Sand

Alan Jacobs writes in his January 23, 2019 newsletter:

"On Tuesday morning, January 22, I read a David Brooks column about a confrontation that happened on the National Mall during the March for Life. Until I read that column I had heard nothing about this incident because I do not have a Facebook account, have deleted my Twitter account, don’t watch TV news, and read the news about once a week. If all goes well, I won’t hear anything more about the story. I recommend this set of practices to you all."

My first thought is to agree with this but that's followed hard upon by the notion that Jacobs and I have our heads in the sand. It can be some of both I think. There may be benefits to having my head in the sand when it comes to the news which often has the appearance of and is as insubstantial as gossip.

Like Jacobs I also wrote about that confrontation on the National Mall and have since avoided all news of it. My brother brought up a couple points about it but that has been the sum total of my reading, listening, or viewing of the event since the morning after it happened. I liked what my brother said about it being the perfect news story for our times because absolutely no one, not even the participants, can say for sure what happened and there is nothing we can believe about it other than the assumptions we brought to it. My experience with difficult students colored how I saw and reacted to the situation. The story wasn't about anything that happened far away. It was all about what I feel is happening near and to me.

Look at me with my head in the sand. Alan Jacobs is there with me somewhere. Neither of us deny the crises of the moment, the evils perpetrated by too many in power, the problems plaguing our world, but rather than focus on the minutia of whatever just happened I want to consider a longer view if for no other reason than I have felt how easy it is to be manipulated by this Republican administration that distracts from their intentions with antics and ridiculous rhetoric.

Jacobs quotes Brian Eno:

We don’t yet, however, live in The Long Now. Our empathy doesn’t extend far forward in time. We need now to start thinking of our great-grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren, as other fellow-humans who are going to live in a real world which we are incessantly, though only semi-consciously, building. But can we accept that our actions and decisions have distant consequences, and yet still dare do anything?

and responds:

My question for Eno: Is it possible to think constructively and empathetically about our great-grandchildren, and their great-children, without also thinking constructively and empathetically about our great-grandparents, and their great-grandparents? I suspect it is not possible — that without understanding our past we will be unable to wisely direct the future — and that’s one reason why I’m writing the book I’m writing.

I like the idea of considering this moment in terms of the far future and distant past. I like imagining my great-grandchildren and great-grandparents neither of whom exist in the world in this moment. I never met my great-grandparents and don't even have grandchildren yet. Holding these people in mind is a challenging act of thinking, imagining, and empathizing. It requires I thoughtfully consider my place in a very large world one that not only extends around the circumference of the Earth but reaches far back and forward in time. It affects how I feel about even mundane things like shopping.

Friends wonder why I link to Indiebound.org books when I would likely make more sales through Amazon. I avoid Amazon because when I consider the times of my great-grandparents and the lives of my great-grandchildren I'm disturbed by the ideas Amazon represents. I don't want to get on a soapbox (not today anyway) about Amazon but thinking long-term has me shopping elsewhere (or not shopping at all). I've long been a person unwilling to delay gratification and so everything Amazon does satisfies those desires. Resistance isn't easy but neither is it futile.

I've recently made a big decision about my future. I considered how I was feeling in the present, what my past has indicated, and what I want from my future. The decision has been made difficult for years because of everyday distractions some of which are important (paying bills, providing the family with healthcare, saving for retirement). Being in the moment when I'm holding the bill or looking at our checking account balance, I haven't been able to think past those immediate emergencies and have pushed the decision to a time when I'm not distracted, a quieter time. That quiet time has yet to come but I've been brought to thinking back on the example of my father and forward to the examples I want to set for my children. I have been confronted by my long-term desire. It's not enough to be concerned with whatever happened ten minutes ago on Instagram, in The New York Times, or along the National Mall. There are larger issues to address and on which to focus especially in the locus of our individual lives.

There is no shortage of crises. Even with my head in this sand I can still see and feel that. The crisis on which I'm most focused at the moment has little to do with the morning news or anything on Twitter. It stretches from a much more distant place and out into the great unknown. Instead of the news I'm listening to jazz on vinyl from 63 years ago. It sounds good and clear. No sand in my ears. Maybe I don't have my head in the sand so much as I'm lying somewhere on a beach looking up into the infinite sky and listening to the waves which have pounded that sand seemingly since time began.