I have taken some time away from this blog to pursue interests related to the blog (i.e. my long hike, etc.). Have also spent a great deal of time considering how I wish to approach the subject matter of my blog and whether writing in this venue is about me, my voice, some quest for public acknowledgement of my writing, a desperate plea for attention, not being hugged enough as a child, etc. You see the madness enveloping my mind on a daily basis. Unemployment will do that.
Peripatetic, while used to connote walking or moving about, also links back to the Greek usage for the word: the act of teaching while walking. Having spent time in front of a classroom, I will be the first to admit that teaching and learning are not fixed roles. Rather, a teacher is a learner and vice versa. In my travels afoot and seated as well, I look to be taught along with teaching others either during or after my travels. A multidirectional flow of information.
I’m afraid that information has taken on a type of one way travel in these modern times. Tom Waits replied to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?”: “We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge”. Without synthesis, information accumulates but never converts. Like sun on soil, if there is no seed, where does sunlight go?
During the holidays, I read Postcards from Ed, a compilation of letters written by Edward Abbey throughout his life. He provides several plugs for works of various authors he finds worth reading. One of the authors, Thomas Wolfe, compared to Faulkner and Hemingway, but without the notoriety, wrote several autobiographical fiction pieces that contained characters based on townspeople from his own community. Unfortunately, Wolfe’s first piece of work was highly controversial and townspeople were upset at their portrayal in the novel. Later, these same people were upset at having not been included in another piece.
These events took place in the 1920′s and 1930′s before television had taken a stranglehold on the imaginations of humans. What is it with people’s inclination to seek public attention? Warhol coined the “15 minutes of fame” line and it seems that everyone is seeking it. Media outlets are full of these portrayals of “reality”. Unfortunately, some of these displays are a sad indictment on the state of the human species. A woman goes ballistic in a Kansas City McDonald’s restaurant and people gather around to watch the surveillance video at the newspaper article’s website. Is this a flow of information in one direction? Does a person parading in front of the news camera depend on an audience of voyeuristic viewers?
A cult of personality is classically defined by a leader using media to glorify his or her image and legacy. Are humans using the readily available sources of mass media to create their own cults of personality? Are we as a society at risk of idolizing the most derivative of behaviors? Does the Shepard Fairey picture of President Obama feed a cult of personality? While Obama, as far as we know, did not enlist Fairey to create the picture, the end result is a mass produced photo that certainly portrays the president in a favorable manner despite the complaints mounting against his administration.
The actions of human beings to be solutions for problems rather than the problem itself seem to be dwindling at times. However, I should note that Fairey is using the Obama image in a critical eye towards the president now and street artists like ABOVE are using their art to turn attention towards the increased homelessness inside our country during the recession. If there is some innate quest for our 15 minutes of fame, I urge everyone to capitalize on it by being a voice for real change, not a media contrived version of change nor the self gratifying quest to be the first dog on the pile.
