Informed but Not Absorbed

Later this afternoon, I'll probably catch up on the news, because Monday is the day the Economist arrives in my mailbox, and the Economist is my source for news. Of course, it's not possible for me to avoid other sources of news altogether, but I do my best to ignore whatever it is people are shouting about — and there's a lot of shouting, isn't there? I like the Economist because (a) it comes out weekly and (b) it covers the whole world, with U.S. news always present but not dominant. Those two features help me to see things more fairly; they enable me to be informed but not absorbed.

The present moment, the immediate, always wants to absorb us, to own us, to prevent us from attending to anything else. The present moment is therefore the great enemy of peace and balance. And anything that disrupts peace and balance also makes sound judgment impossible.

I often think of Auden's poem "The Horatians": "We can only / do what it seems to us we were made for, look at / this world with a happy eye / but from a sober perspective.” That's my ambition, and controlling my attention helps me to draw closer to it.

Strangely enough, this leads me to think about blogging.

Blogging, for me, has two aspects: sharing and reflecting. When I come across interesting things — words, images, sounds — and, particularly, interesting things that are not of the here and now, I like to share them with readers. That's primarily what my micro.blog page is for. If you look at it now and scroll down a bit, you'll see several portraits by the great photographer Edward Steichen. Steichen is a famous photographer, but not as famous as he ought to be. I hope you'll enjoy those photos and then look for more. It's a far better way to spend your time than doomscrolling.

The reflecting is what I do on my big blog. Right now I'm thinking about David Hume's massive History of England. Hume is capable of writing eloquently about human excellence, but he's even better when describing the many forms of human folly. And I think the nature of folly is easier to grasp when we see it manifest in times and places other than our own. Then, when we do return to our own moment, we have standards of comparison that will help us better to understand it. By remaining informed but refusing to be absorbed, I maintain my balance; I am more peaceful, less capable of being carried away by my emotions ... or someone else's.

I have one more post on Hume coming, then one on detective fiction — which I'm thinking about a lot because of my work-in-progress on Dorothy L. Sayers — and after that a series on the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1943, a series that will, eventually, lead me to a post or two on Terrence Malick's great film The Thin Red Line. I hope y'all will enjoy all of it, and use what I share and what I reflect on alike as means of getting your mind some distance away from the shouting.

Thanks once more for all your support! I really do feel that, in my own tiny way, like John Milton I have a "fit audience though few."

But speaking of the tyranny of the immediate — in a much more pleasant way — I am required for play. Angus doesn't exactly have a sober perspective, but he has a very happy eye.