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Felt very depressed yesterday on account of watching a lot of news, which is a hazard in a profession in which my livelihood depends on watching a lot of news. I'm fairly appalled by the current state of punditry in our country, wherein people take a side and repeat a lot of talking points, very much like the congress only worse, and honestly if there is going to be no difference between what any of you says why do we need to pay so many people to do it? It seems inefficient.
In this case, a lot of repetition about how Obama "needs to compromise" and didn't work with Congress at all . . . which is an awfully strange thing to hear repeated so smugly when you have spent two years watching CSPAN broadcast White House meetings in which Republican ideas are integrated with Democratic ideas. Or when moments ago you saw Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell commanding his party to ignore principles and what might be best for the country, and not lose sight of their real objective, which is making sure Obama isn't reelected.
It is very difficult to have faith that being good is worth anything if the news media will nod sagely and repeat things that are outright lies just because it seems colorful and feels plausible even if it's made up, when even recent, well-documented history is ignored. It is hard to want to be an artist when it seems that both the elites and the common people aren't worth a damn.
It has always been my objective, the driving purpose in my life, to want to encourage people to strive to be the best possible version of themselves. Not to rally them around a cause, or to end suffering, but simply to say that we all have one life and should try to live it in a way that is worth emulating.
You'd never know that from my work, mind you; most of my work tends to be about anomie and isolation, simply because that is how I have felt for a very long time, and that makes its way out whether I mean it to or not. But my actual goal is to be Frank Capra, even if that kind of sentimentality isn't my strength and I am doomed to always fall short of it. But it seems like I am losing. It seems like we are all losing.
In this case, a lot of repetition about how Obama "needs to compromise" and didn't work with Congress at all . . . which is an awfully strange thing to hear repeated so smugly when you have spent two years watching CSPAN broadcast White House meetings in which Republican ideas are integrated with Democratic ideas. Or when moments ago you saw Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell commanding his party to ignore principles and what might be best for the country, and not lose sight of their real objective, which is making sure Obama isn't reelected.
It is very difficult to have faith that being good is worth anything if the news media will nod sagely and repeat things that are outright lies just because it seems colorful and feels plausible even if it's made up, when even recent, well-documented history is ignored. It is hard to want to be an artist when it seems that both the elites and the common people aren't worth a damn.
It has always been my objective, the driving purpose in my life, to want to encourage people to strive to be the best possible version of themselves. Not to rally them around a cause, or to end suffering, but simply to say that we all have one life and should try to live it in a way that is worth emulating.
You'd never know that from my work, mind you; most of my work tends to be about anomie and isolation, simply because that is how I have felt for a very long time, and that makes its way out whether I mean it to or not. But my actual goal is to be Frank Capra, even if that kind of sentimentality isn't my strength and I am doomed to always fall short of it. But it seems like I am losing. It seems like we are all losing.
