Listen to Me–A Recipe for a Sane World

Tags

God concepts, Internet, opinion, power, quotations, Sophia, thinking, women, writing

I often sit down to write with little or no idea where I might end up. I figure that’s a good thing mostly. And frankly, on occasion, I start one place and end another. There is no road map after all.

I picked up this article in the NYTimes, which seemed provocative and in the end enlightening. It warned implicitly at least that we are usually wrong when we form opinions mostly from anecdotal evidence.

It seems to me, that most of what we do is in the form of  concluding from whatever “evidence” we have acquired up to a certain point from actual research or reading and experiential events. Depending on how heavily weighted the former is, we are more likely right or wrong.

The article pointed out that while it may seem that we are being turned into attention deficit superficialities by the ready speed of the Internet, in fact we aren’t, as attested by any number of actual scientific studies. Okay, I can buy that. And frankly, I’m relieved.

But the unintended consequence of the article, was a off hand link to a site I’d never heard of, and that was worth ten times the article to me. Where I started in the direction of discussing how we prefer 500 words or less in our posts, I drifted into the realm of thinking my opinions mostly shit.

So I developed this tongue in cheek title and went looking for a suitable image. I, as most writers, undoubted assume that we have something you should hear, so I typed in “God Complex” thinking it an amusing image for the post. Alas, not a single one portrayed a woman as suffering from this. So I tried “God as Woman” and that got me “God as women?” and then mostly tons of images of God creating woman. Then I tried feminists as God, and I got more garbage in the form of symbols, and this went on for some time.

My frustration grew. Finally I got the above sweet nurturing image of God as Sophia. Not at all what I was looking for. No ripped abs portraying woman as conqueror or powerful overlord of earth–no I got sappy sweet mother goddess stuff.

And I was reminded that yesterday, the owner of The Daily Beast was on GMA. She was asked what it meant that most of the Tuesday primaries had been won by women. Her response was, “well it proves that women can be wingnuts too.” And I agree.

It’s not that I’m arguing that I want women to be power hungry, insensitive louts like some men are. I’m acceding that they already are, and probably always have been. Yes, I believe that there are differences between men on women on a whole plethora of levels, but given the right motivations, women are as greedy and blood thirsty as any man thought of being.

So why no women with God complexes? I dunno.

Finding Arts and Letters Daily, (the above link) is like finding nirvana. It’s like you want to redo your entire blogroll, and well, spend a few days, weeks or so meandering around. That for me is the point of the Internet, but it’s a little like walking into the Library of Congress or the MMA–you have a day–choose wisely.

Once upon a time it was possible for a man or woman to know virtually everything that there was to know about any given field of endeavor, and perhaps several. Today, you can but keep generally abreast of the trends in a field. There are more books, articles and such than you can ever hope to read or even know about.

And the amazing thing, is that we (the writers of whatever) in our pathetic egotistical sadness actually think that somebody has time to listen to our pathetic whinings. Yet, the human spirit appears to forge ahead, confident that somewhere an audience exists. Dangerously, this thought occurs to the serial cannibal as well and they can but be encouraged when they find their own among the billions who inhabit the planet.

It all leaves me with no depressed feelings, but a shrugging feeling. I distinctly felt a shrug coming on as I thought about it. I don’t care. I write because I like my own voice inside my head, and I think myself devilishly funny and acidic and witty. I’m always surprised when my best prose, my most humorous repartee is met with silence, but it’s simply not my fault if you are unable to see the genius I am.

Now that was supposed to elicit a huge guffaw, before you snap off thinking me insufferably arrogant. The fact is, there is more talent on planet earth that most realize. I am not exceptional but the norm I suspect. That is not cause for sadness, but gives hope that in the end, this planet will survive its experiment with the human species.

So as you can see, this post is a bit incoherent. I am aware of that! But it’s what I chose to do today. Wandering as the thought carried. Thanks for wandering with me. I like the company. After all, there is a worthwhile couple of links, and you can skip the rest.

Two quotes:

Speed reading is touted as letting you read much faster with good comprehension. Woody Allen read War and Peace in one day and proved the truth of that by responding: “It’s about Russia.”

Jean-Paul Sartre quipped:  In a football match, everything is complicated by the presence of the other team.