I’ve been contemplating a bit of obsolete mental programming I picked up in my youth: The cultural injunction to be well-read, well-informed, scholarly, well-traveled, active, etc. (At least this was so for the sub-culture in which I grew up in the mid-20th century.) I should keep up on the news, know what\u2019s up so that I don\u2019t seem uninformed at parties, be sophisticated. It turns out I have done well at this, but it\u2019s a nasty injunction because it\u2019s never-ending. How much is enough, already? What if it isn\u2019t even true?! I realized that in a rapidly changing world I wasn\u2019t keeping up. In a broader sense, indeed, it occurred to me that 99.9999+9 to the 9th power % of what\u2019s going I don\u2019t and can\u2019t know about, because there\u2019s way too much. So I\u2019m missing out on almost everything! <\/p>\n
Furthermore, of that which I could access and keep up on\u2014oh, my!, I realized that I don\u2019t care about 95% of it all, or I actually don\u2019t like that sort of activity, and don\u2019t want to be annoyed by hearing about it. (I know, that could seem to prove that I\u2019m rather closed-minded, and\/or I can hear in my imagination one of my inner goblin-conscience voices saying that.) And of the remaining 5% of that other tiny fraction, the 5% that I have some interest in, 90% of that is nice, but peripheral. Some of which I might dip into if it\u2019s free and convenient, like a book that catches my eye at the library, but even that has of late accumulated so there\u2019s too much: magazine articles and books I might want to re-read or finish reading; DVDs and videos I might want to watch. And I refuse to have a television set, though I know I\u2019m \u201cmissing out\u201d on the 10% of good programs, even though 90% is crap. And even the good programs have a lot of commercials. <\/p>\n
But others think I\u2019m remarkably broad and well-read, diverse in my interests. \u201cRelative to what?\u201d I think. And if I think about from another angle, I realize that I have lived and continue to live a very full life! I have a number of projects that, if I can finish them, will be deeply satisfying. I don\u2019t assume they will all get finished and so they continue to sharpen as priorities. The rest of the things\u2014 all that I\u2019m \u201cmissing out on\u201d\u2014I am determined to get it in perspective and let it go! <\/p>\n
So it becomes a bit of a spiritual discipline, or an activity of applying psychological literacy, to free myself from internal injunctions to keep expanding, don’t miss out on anything, make sure I\u2019m sophisticated, well traveled, taste all possible tastes, etc. Accept my comfortably full schedule. Realize that I really hate to over-pack my life\u2014no time left to savor the sweet things, to proverbially \u201cstop and smell the flowers.\u201d Keeping the balance is tricky, but I realize that it\u2019s wisest if I prioritize. That means I also must resist the voices that say that I’m "missing out" on a whole lot of stuff. The proper response is not frustrated despair but rather gentle laughter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been contemplating a bit of obsolete mental programming I picked up in my youth: The cultural injunction to be well-read, well-informed, scholarly, well-traveled, active, etc. (At least this was so for the sub-culture in which I grew up in the mid-20th century.) I should keep up on the news, know what\u2019s up so that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,20,11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-follies","category-literacy","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}