Dennis, who still watches the evening news as well as various talking heads, came away from the TV last night worried about the "fiscal cliff." He started to explain it to me, including some dreadful possible outcomes, but I stopped him.
I didn't want to know and I still don't. I remembered Thomas Gray's famous line, "...where ignorance is bliss, Tis folly to be wise." I remembered Alfred E. Neuman's "What? Me Worry?"
The fiscal cliff is a vast abstraction, not a reality, to me. I'm too practical and earth-rooted to waste time fretting over what might happen in the future.
I'm interested, instead, in what is before my eyes, such as three loaves of fresh bread and a dozen pullet eggs, half of them from Araucanas.
I would rather look at the salad bowl and see a fat buddha holding his supper bowl, ready to be fed, than think about the fiscal cliff.
Rather than get indigestion from watching news programs, I will read John McPhee's books about geology, starting with Basin and Range. Geology is a subject guaranteed to give perspective on the importance of human endeavors. By the time I finish, the hubbub about elections and fiscal cliffs will be over.
I'm sure Dennis will tell me how it all turns out.
I didn't want to know and I still don't. I remembered Thomas Gray's famous line, "...where ignorance is bliss, Tis folly to be wise." I remembered Alfred E. Neuman's "What? Me Worry?"
The fiscal cliff is a vast abstraction, not a reality, to me. I'm too practical and earth-rooted to waste time fretting over what might happen in the future.
I'm interested, instead, in what is before my eyes, such as three loaves of fresh bread and a dozen pullet eggs, half of them from Araucanas.
I would rather look at the salad bowl and see a fat buddha holding his supper bowl, ready to be fed, than think about the fiscal cliff.
Rather than get indigestion from watching news programs, I will read John McPhee's books about geology, starting with Basin and Range. Geology is a subject guaranteed to give perspective on the importance of human endeavors. By the time I finish, the hubbub about elections and fiscal cliffs will be over.
I'm sure Dennis will tell me how it all turns out.
2 comments:
Watching the news, listening to the pundits causes many of us great anxiety because we can do nothing! Exchanging one president for another changes very little; no one person has that much power! Too much greed, I'm afraid, is the human condition that will be our downfall; oh, and that other desire to be the all, great powerful OZ!
You're right, greed and ego may be our downfall.
I should also have mentioned Voltaire, who advised, "Tend your garden." Indeed there is almost nothing one can do to change things, so we'd might as well do something constructive and quit worrying. Maybe we are both too cynical, but I doubt it.
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