Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

In the land of the Distracted, everyone is happy except when they are not. The people there like to say that they are free, but troublesome spirits roam the land called Nuances that confuse people into thinking that things are not as they appear or are not how they seem or are perhaps what they thought they were in the first place but less so. Or maybe more. This lack of clarity, or sharp distinction, bothers the people so overwhelmingly that they eat and drink and look at screens so much that they have become addled. Addled might be a word that means distracted until the Nuances are able to slip into an empty space in people’s thinking and cause perplexion and combobulation. And then hunger and lethargy set in, and people are soon back to their old habits without thinking. Or of not thinking. Or perhaps thinking about something else.

But the question - and more things should be questions than you would think at first glance - is freedom. But before we consider the question more seriously, perhaps we should know more about the Nuances. They are gray. Some will debate whether they are lighter or darker, as if that matters, and it does and it does not. They are not black and they are not white. Nuances are gray. We could be here all night holding up paint swatches next to each other if we’re not careful. Is this one darker or that one lighter, or is this third one in between or closer to the black or to the white. In this light it almost seems as if it might actually be white. Or off-white. Maybe a cream or an ivory. But if it were an old T-shirt you might say it seems gray. And if it were hair, you might say it is more white than gray. And if it were a newspaper or a book made out of paper you might say that it had yellowed. Not like the sun, of course, but truly these Nuances are primarily meant to slow us down, driving us to distraction if not despair, and then it will be time for our after supper snack, or our before bedtime snack - depending on the words and more words and still more words - that intrude into our sincere discussions.

If we stick to black and white, we should be clear – that is, it should be one or the other. We are free people, after all. We are also social people, which also threatens to confuse the issue. If free people in their freeness don’t choose to think exactly like one another and come to want different things, some mechanism must be established for governing society. The natural order deals with this problem in a straightforward matter. When there is conflict, the stronger one gets what they want, the weaker one doesn’t. It may not seem civilized, but that is nature for you.

Society has benefits, but those benefits will come with rules. And the rules have to come from somewhere. ‘Don’t tread on me’ was fine when we lived scattered about, but in becoming so fruitful and multiplying, people’s toes are getting stepped on. Again, it seems that someone must make some rules, but who? This part is somewhat natural. Usually the stronger get to make the rules, and the weaker don’t. Unless the weaker can figure out how to get together and organize themselves into a force that is stronger than the force that the stronger ones in their fewer numbers can muster. This becomes an ever fluctuating struggle some have called democracy, but we won’t quibble all day and all night over whether that is the proper word to use.

For the sake of not having an argument, let’s say (Nuances notwithstanding) that we are free and that to live together and gain the benefits of some civilization, we must have some rules and that they should be fair. Somehow we should balance our various interests so that we can all pursue happiness.

But in the land of the Distracted, people have become distracted. Who’s to blame? That’s one of the prime distracting questions. I say it’s the media, or the politicians, or the corporations, or perhaps it’s a conspiracy, or maybe it’s just a few greedy people, and after everyone has checked their favorite screen for someone else’s word for it and gone ring around the merry-go-ground five or six time, most people realize that they’re hungry or that it would be nice to get a drink and just follow a bouncing ball for awhile.

There are real interests and real conflicts after all,  and what I want is more this than the that that you want and if only it were simple we could all just have ice cream and not get fat.

It is not really the Nuances that are to blame. They are as real as black is not white. And that this snowflake is not that one. But if we cannot be clear, we can take the effort to not be distracted by Nuances that are meant to distract. Finally, you should ask, in whose interests are words being used? And don’t take my word for it and don’t take the words of the heads on the screen. Until you figure the essentials out for yourself, you will be led like a dumb ox by the screen. Not that every choice will ever be yours. The truth, or at least responsible decisions, will have to come or be made from listening to others who maybe be honest or who may be lying – or may simply be distracting you so that they can get all the ice cream.

But begin by breaking things down into who wants what. Don’t let words and images distract you, although you will have to sift through some. It will take you more than a day and a night, so by all means, get yourself something to something to eat and to drink. Laugh with your friends. The work of becoming free and fair requires attention but you still have to live. Try not to be distracted from doing both well. Try to live well.

Text message

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Can you hear me now? It’s pathetic, really, that after millions of years of evolution those words are how I opened this thought. Do jokes and jingles trump King Solomon? Is there really nothing new under the sun?

Of course, with a flick of a finger across a screen you could in fact be reading this text now as you wait for your delayed flight to take you up, up and away in a metal balloon. That’s all a jet airplane is, really. First you’re at ground level, then you’re at thirty-thousand feet, and then you’re back on the ground. Still, kind of amazing.

So, Mr. Smartypants Ecclesiastes, how do you like them apples?

And yet, my earnest conviction is that deep down in our DNA or maybe in our soul - you can call it whatever you want to - most of those apples are little more than a patina on very old bronze. On the other hand, in our current era, we are indeed very fixated on the patina. Could it be that our level of smug self-satisfaction with our clever tools and toys is a new thing?

We - and I mean those of us who are alive in the twenty-first century, CE, those of us who have water out of a tap, light and A/C out of a wire, and information and entertainment coming and going via satellite - we are indeed rich relative to all of our human ancestors.  We are awash in information and gadgets in this era of the human race, and yet – and yet, I ask: who among us is making substantial sense out of all of this? Mr. Solomon, what say you? Who can say what all this stuff means for the human race?

If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t be putting my money on the preachers or the politicians or the pundits or the prognosticators to be making very much sense of it all. I think I’d go with the comedians and the song writers. Laughter and tears often remain the best indicators of truth, in my book.

So, what is real? And what is dross?

Descartes walks into a bar.

Bartender asks: can I make you a whiskey sour?

Descartes replies: I think not – and promptly vanishes.

Mostly dross – by my own measure. But something in that joke was real, I think. But still my question about stuff and nonsense remains mostly unanswered.