Click for source.
About the only way I can stomach the news anymore is through the caustic-funny lens of The Daily Show. I don’t want to be completely unaware about what’s going on around me, but most of what I hear makes me gag, weep, or want to stab people–sometimes all three, simultaneously. Sharing an incredulous, wry, not at all funny laugh with Jon Stewart makes the information just palatable enough to get into my brain-mouth. Chew, swallow, digest. It’s better than unmitigated ignorance, but only just.
Surely you know what I mean. The infotainment masquerading as journalism is a shady circus of malfeasance, petty vengeance, and naked greed… and that’s just the personalities delivering the so-called news. Nevermind the facts of the world as they’re presented. Nevermind that most of what we hear–commercial breaks included–portrays a world in direct opposition to our values, to the actualities of the life we are trying to lead.
I call it the Litany of Bad. LoB, pronounced lob. Sounds a lot like blob, like something you’d find accumulated in an aromatic patty, something you’d notice a half-second after you’ve placed your foot squarely in it. Stinky, smelly LoB. Your mother always told you to take off your shoes so you don’t track the LoB all over the carpet. LoB–that fetid pile at the curb that no one wants to claim. LoB streams into your house all day, every day. You can unplug LoB’s electronic modes of transfer, but even then a little of the smell drifts in from the ambient air. LoB is everywhere.
As noxious as it is, LoB can become pastime. We’re all amateur LoB-ers, to varying degrees. As Paul Hawken points out in Blessed Unrest, “wrong is an addictive, repetitive story.” I do try occasionally to go cold turkey with my LoB habit, if only to preserve my own sanity and sometimes tenuous faith in the goodness of my fellow humans. For added benefit, I dose with LoB-antidotes–stories with happy endings, uplifting news, simple acts of creation and affirmation. One I tried recently was Hawken’s book. The paperback’s subtitle seemed surefire anti-LoB: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World. Sounds like the perfect LoB counter, no?
If only. Hawken’s book, while well-intentioned, doesn’t exactly live up to the warm, fuzzy expectations I had for it. I suppose it’s hard to write about all the organizations working for positive change in the world without addressing why the work is necessary, but I’d hoped for a little more silver in my lining.
Although he asserts in his first chapter that his book “is the story without apologies of what is going right on this planet… not defeatist accounts about the limits,” it reads mostly as its own Litany of Bad. Global, historical, long-standing, insidious Bad. Gag, cry, stab.
Important stuff, but not the antidote I was looking for. But, as Hawken points out, “what we already know frames what we see, and what we see frames what we understand.” Perhaps I’d have found this book more inspiring–indeed, many of the reviews I’ve read call it just that–if its recounting of corporate and institutional sins against people and the environment weren’t precisely what already occupies my LoB-addled brain. I know too much. Reading this book, I can’t see the million sprouts of good poking up through the ground in the shadow of all those dense, dark acres of bad. I’m wearing LoB-colored specs, and their lenses are the color of despair.
Fortunately, in the final pages, Hawken drew on the words of my spiritual rhetorician and cosmic drinking buddy David James Duncan for just the sort of LoB-funk-buster I needed. From his beautifully articulated book, God Laughs & Plays, he writes about how one small, lone individual can rightly behave in the face of such an enormous LoB. When the problems of the world seem insurmountable, is it completely fruitless–indeed, perhaps even a little foolish–to believe that my small actions can have any sort of impact? Duncan says no, and it’s the answer I need to hear, need to keep hearing, every day: “…the only spiritually responsible way I know to be a citizen, artist, or activist in these strange times is by giving little or no thought to ‘great things’ such as saving the planet, achieving world peace, or stopping neocon greed. Great things tend to be undoable things. Whereas small things, lovingly done, are always within our reach.”
So simple, light, and fresh. A real palate-cleanser. The bad taste of the LoB will continue to flavor any thinking person’s life; what we have to remember, and tell each other, is that our tiny, fierce, sincere, good acts still have meaning. Gardens matter. Disobeying the commercials’ orders to shop shop shop matters. Making your home more energy efficient because you love mountains matters. The big problems, the LoB problems, are way past human scale; their solutions aren’t going to be within the reach of any one person or family. But how each of us chooses to live is.
Salvation, in terms of “saving” the planet for ourselves and our continued dominion, isn’t the point. It might not even be possible. But redemption, making ourselves worthy of such an extraordinary existence as this one, demonstrating with our behavior that we value this world and what’s in it… that is within my reach, and yours. We don’t have control over much else. And that’s a far more happy, hopeful statement than it sounds. So carry on. Forget the LoB–or at least set it aside, as the stumbling block that it is.
What we’re really talking about here is a recalibration of how we see the world: put the big problems, the LoB, into soft focus. Blur it all out. It’s still there, but your attention, your energy, is wasted on worrying over it. Adjust your view until what you can reach and touch and change fills your vision. Now, act.
Recalibrate. It kind of feels like forgiveness, doesn’t it?
Today’s poem on the Writer’s Almanac is apropos. Read, enjoy. Now go do small things, lovingly.
LoB gets in your eyes
Click for source.
About the only way I can stomach the news anymore is through the caustic-funny lens of The Daily Show. I don’t want to be completely unaware about what’s going on around me, but most of what I hear makes me gag, weep, or want to stab people–sometimes all three, simultaneously. Sharing an incredulous, wry, not at all funny laugh with Jon Stewart makes the information just palatable enough to get into my brain-mouth. Chew, swallow, digest. It’s better than unmitigated ignorance, but only just.
Surely you know what I mean. The infotainment masquerading as journalism is a shady circus of malfeasance, petty vengeance, and naked greed… and that’s just the personalities delivering the so-called news. Nevermind the facts of the world as they’re presented. Nevermind that most of what we hear–commercial breaks included–portrays a world in direct opposition to our values, to the actualities of the life we are trying to lead.
I call it the Litany of Bad. LoB, pronounced lob. Sounds a lot like blob, like something you’d find accumulated in an aromatic patty, something you’d notice a half-second after you’ve placed your foot squarely in it. Stinky, smelly LoB. Your mother always told you to take off your shoes so you don’t track the LoB all over the carpet. LoB–that fetid pile at the curb that no one wants to claim. LoB streams into your house all day, every day. You can unplug LoB’s electronic modes of transfer, but even then a little of the smell drifts in from the ambient air. LoB is everywhere.
As noxious as it is, LoB can become pastime. We’re all amateur LoB-ers, to varying degrees. As Paul Hawken points out in Blessed Unrest, “wrong is an addictive, repetitive story.” I do try occasionally to go cold turkey with my LoB habit, if only to preserve my own sanity and sometimes tenuous faith in the goodness of my fellow humans. For added benefit, I dose with LoB-antidotes–stories with happy endings, uplifting news, simple acts of creation and affirmation. One I tried recently was Hawken’s book. The paperback’s subtitle seemed surefire anti-LoB: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World. Sounds like the perfect LoB counter, no?
If only. Hawken’s book, while well-intentioned, doesn’t exactly live up to the warm, fuzzy expectations I had for it. I suppose it’s hard to write about all the organizations working for positive change in the world without addressing why the work is necessary, but I’d hoped for a little more silver in my lining.
Although he asserts in his first chapter that his book “is the story without apologies of what is going right on this planet… not defeatist accounts about the limits,” it reads mostly as its own Litany of Bad. Global, historical, long-standing, insidious Bad. Gag, cry, stab.
Important stuff, but not the antidote I was looking for. But, as Hawken points out, “what we already know frames what we see, and what we see frames what we understand.” Perhaps I’d have found this book more inspiring–indeed, many of the reviews I’ve read call it just that–if its recounting of corporate and institutional sins against people and the environment weren’t precisely what already occupies my LoB-addled brain. I know too much. Reading this book, I can’t see the million sprouts of good poking up through the ground in the shadow of all those dense, dark acres of bad. I’m wearing LoB-colored specs, and their lenses are the color of despair.
Fortunately, in the final pages, Hawken drew on the words of my spiritual rhetorician and cosmic drinking buddy David James Duncan for just the sort of LoB-funk-buster I needed. From his beautifully articulated book, God Laughs & Plays, he writes about how one small, lone individual can rightly behave in the face of such an enormous LoB. When the problems of the world seem insurmountable, is it completely fruitless–indeed, perhaps even a little foolish–to believe that my small actions can have any sort of impact? Duncan says no, and it’s the answer I need to hear, need to keep hearing, every day: “…the only spiritually responsible way I know to be a citizen, artist, or activist in these strange times is by giving little or no thought to ‘great things’ such as saving the planet, achieving world peace, or stopping neocon greed. Great things tend to be undoable things. Whereas small things, lovingly done, are always within our reach.”
So simple, light, and fresh. A real palate-cleanser. The bad taste of the LoB will continue to flavor any thinking person’s life; what we have to remember, and tell each other, is that our tiny, fierce, sincere, good acts still have meaning. Gardens matter. Disobeying the commercials’ orders to shop shop shop matters. Making your home more energy efficient because you love mountains matters. The big problems, the LoB problems, are way past human scale; their solutions aren’t going to be within the reach of any one person or family. But how each of us chooses to live is.
Salvation, in terms of “saving” the planet for ourselves and our continued dominion, isn’t the point. It might not even be possible. But redemption, making ourselves worthy of such an extraordinary existence as this one, demonstrating with our behavior that we value this world and what’s in it… that is within my reach, and yours. We don’t have control over much else. And that’s a far more happy, hopeful statement than it sounds. So carry on. Forget the LoB–or at least set it aside, as the stumbling block that it is.
What we’re really talking about here is a recalibration of how we see the world: put the big problems, the LoB, into soft focus. Blur it all out. It’s still there, but your attention, your energy, is wasted on worrying over it. Adjust your view until what you can reach and touch and change fills your vision. Now, act.
Recalibrate. It kind of feels like forgiveness, doesn’t it?
Today’s poem on the Writer’s Almanac is apropos. Read, enjoy. Now go do small things, lovingly.
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Posted in Commentary + Philosophy
Tagged bad news, change, david james duncan, paul hawken, right action, social movements