'Taint
Typical of me, I have zip in mind for what I will put up on here, but plenty of ideas as to what I won't.
This will be a polemic-free zone.
Ever since I was a pre-teen, I have been a newshound; I have also been fascinated and absorbed by politics and government. I never considered politics for myself - too many witnesses to my sordid past abound - but I was always engaged, proseletyzing relentlessly. I was forever forming opinions, modifying them, shaping them, polishing them like little gems.
And the news? I devoured it all. I was on a quest to know everything about everything. Then the whole world would have to go through me like shit through a goose, so that I might pronounce my opinion on each and every issue of the day. I lived a noisy, urgent life.
And then I just got fucking tired. Tired of it all. Tired of warring factions whose only point of agreement was on hating anyone who didn't neatly fit the arguments. Tired of bleed-lead news. And like a cold-turkey kick, I cut myself off. Just like that. And a strange thing happened.
I began to notice a distinct corollary: the less I paid attention to all that stuff, the more engaged I became in my own life.
There was no denying it - I was happier, less agitated. I was more deeply involved in my inner life, which, parodoxically, also left more room for me to share the lives of my beloved friends and family.
It's not that I don't pay attention to important issues. But once I could see what the cost of admission to the circus had been, I began to raise the bar on my "must-know" criteria. And I began to realize how exhausting it was to maintain a position on every issue of the day. I'm out.
So I'm gonna post about life, music, philosophy - anything but politics, manufactured controversies, or the celebrity cluster-fuck that passes for news in mainstream culture. I'm not above any of it: I know how quickly I am seduced by it all, but I also know the morning-after remorse I feel, every time I take the news too seriously.
I think I'm gonna like this blog thing. Woo Hoo!!!
This will be a polemic-free zone.
Ever since I was a pre-teen, I have been a newshound; I have also been fascinated and absorbed by politics and government. I never considered politics for myself - too many witnesses to my sordid past abound - but I was always engaged, proseletyzing relentlessly. I was forever forming opinions, modifying them, shaping them, polishing them like little gems.
And the news? I devoured it all. I was on a quest to know everything about everything. Then the whole world would have to go through me like shit through a goose, so that I might pronounce my opinion on each and every issue of the day. I lived a noisy, urgent life.
And then I just got fucking tired. Tired of it all. Tired of warring factions whose only point of agreement was on hating anyone who didn't neatly fit the arguments. Tired of bleed-lead news. And like a cold-turkey kick, I cut myself off. Just like that. And a strange thing happened.
I began to notice a distinct corollary: the less I paid attention to all that stuff, the more engaged I became in my own life.
There was no denying it - I was happier, less agitated. I was more deeply involved in my inner life, which, parodoxically, also left more room for me to share the lives of my beloved friends and family.
It's not that I don't pay attention to important issues. But once I could see what the cost of admission to the circus had been, I began to raise the bar on my "must-know" criteria. And I began to realize how exhausting it was to maintain a position on every issue of the day. I'm out.
So I'm gonna post about life, music, philosophy - anything but politics, manufactured controversies, or the celebrity cluster-fuck that passes for news in mainstream culture. I'm not above any of it: I know how quickly I am seduced by it all, but I also know the morning-after remorse I feel, every time I take the news too seriously.
I think I'm gonna like this blog thing. Woo Hoo!!!
posted by Jahn Xavier at 1/29/2005 07:39:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home