{"id":25461,"date":"2022-06-03T19:51:48","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T23:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=25461"},"modified":"2022-06-03T19:51:49","modified_gmt":"2022-06-03T23:51:49","slug":"talking-ourselves-into-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/talking-ourselves-into-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Ourselves into Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

[Image: “Twisting on the Rim,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page<\/a> at <\/em><\/em><\/em>RAMH.)<\/em><\/em>]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to the vagaries of our travel schedule this week, today’s post may seem — seem<\/em> (?) — sketchy and amorphous. But that’s only because I lack the time to fill in the gaps; I’m sure you, whoever you are, can supply the necessary spackling yourself — especially if you’ve seen how this works over the years, especially recently! So let’s lay it out there — first, from whiskey river<\/a><\/em> (italicized lines):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little Epiphanies<\/strong><\/p>

The difference between what’s required
and what\u2019s desired is the difference<\/p>

between the chocolate and the cake,
the car and the new car smell, the nightie<\/p>

and the night. There’s so much I want
to twist round my fingers, to stroke<\/p>

and stir, sketch and stretch, but so much
I should sweep and scrub, strip<\/p>

and sterilize. But I’d rather wring dirt
from my pores, turn it to ink instead,<\/p>

rather scurry to my driveway to study
the moon’s abrupt phrases than kneel<\/p>

with bucket and mop to banish shadows
that have sprung up on my kitchen<\/p>

floor, darkening my soles as if I were
anointed, a kind of low-rent henna<\/p>

for the lazy and uninhibited.
I should keep the unmentionables<\/p>

unmentioned, nudity prohibited,
purses to a minimum, but I thrive<\/p>

on clutter—my gaudy bras and bags
of yarn, my malfunctioning pens,<\/p>

last chance reams of slightly damaged
paper. The difference between what’s whole<\/em><\/p>

and what’s held, what’s withheld
or revealed, what’s real and what’s<\/em><\/p>

revelation—that’s what I seek,
rest of my life spent in search<\/em><\/p>

of little epiphanies, tiny sparks surging
out of the brain during the clumsiest speech.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Allison Joseph [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and then a couple of bits not<\/em> from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…a record-high gap has opened up between Americans’ personal attitudes and their evaluations of the country. In early 2022, Gallup found that Americans’ satisfaction with “the way things are going in personal life” neared a 40-year high, even as their satisfaction with “the way things are going in the U.S.” neared a 40-year low. On top of the old and global tendency to assume most people are doing worse than they say they are is a growing American tendency to be catastrophically gloomy about the direction of this country, even as we’re resiliently sunny about our own household’s future.<\/p>

…Sure, voters like to hate things at the national and abstract levels, which seems to open the door for bold change. But because most Americans say they’re personally fine, they might resist too much experimentation. This creates a confusing voting bloc, which is constantly angry about the state of things, but also fundamentally conservative about any change that overturns their “rather happy” life and “at least okay” finances.<\/p>

I have a final theory of what’s going on here. With greater access to news on social media and the internet, Americans are more deluged than they used to be by depressing stories. (And the news cycle really can be pretty depressing!<\/a>) This is leading to a kind of perma-gloom about the state of the world, even as we maintain a certain resilience about the things that we have the most control over. Beyond the diverse array of daily challenges that Americans face, many of us seem to be suffering from something related to the German concept of weltschmerz<\/em>, or world-sadness. It’s mediaschmerz<\/em>—a sadness about the news cycle and news media, which is distinct from the experience of our everyday life. I’m not entirely sure if I think this is good or bad. It simply is. Individual hope and national despair are not contradictions. For now, they form the double helix of the American spirit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Derek Thompson [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lilies<\/strong><\/p>

I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.<\/p>

They rise and fall
in the wedge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,<\/p>

and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would like to be
as wonderful<\/p>

as that old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for the green face<\/p>

of the hummingbird
to touch me.
What I mean is,
could I forget myself<\/p>

even in those feathery fields?
When van Gogh
preached to the poor
of course he wanted to save someone\u2014<\/p>

most of all himself.
He wasn’t a lily,
and wandering through the fields
only gave him more ideas<\/p>

it would take his life to solve.
I think I will always be lonely
in this world, where the cattle
graze like a black and white river,<\/p>

where the ravishing lilies
melt, without protest, on their tongues—
where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,
just rises and floats away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Mary Oliver [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Twisting on the Rim,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] Thanks to the vagaries of our travel schedule this week, today’s post may seem — seem (?) — sketchy and amorphous. But that’s only because I lack the time to fill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Allison Joseph et al.: 'Talking Ourselves into Disaster'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,94,4701,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[595,5557,5558,5559,5560,5561],"class_list":{"0":"post-25461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-02_in-the-news","10":"category-my-photography","11":"category-art","12":"category-06_writing","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-mary-oliver","16":"tag-derek-thompson","17":"tag-allison-joseph","18":"tag-plugging-the-gaps","19":"tag-no-news-is-good-news","20":"tag-the-news","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6CF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25461"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25467,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25461\/revisions\/25467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}