Friday, December 12, 2024

Good morning. We are getting close to the end of the year, which means it's almost time for me to rest on my laurels and just start listing my favorite TV and movies from 2024 (I stopped listening to new music in 2015 and I'm still catching up on books from the mid-aughts). But I forgot about that until I was about done with this week's newsletter so this is all timely (in the sense that most of this is pegged to stuff from the 1990s or earlier). I guess I will kick things off with one contemporaneous item, though:

Item 1: a link

The estimable writer George Saunders has a newsletter for writers that I enjoy (even though I am more of a collage-ist than a writer). This week he wrote about (paraphrasing) how to go on with one's non-political work in a time when it seems frivolous to think about anything else. Here's part of the preamble:

My life is given meaning by this idea, which runs on background all the time, infusing even small actions with meaning: what I’m doing (all that I’m doing) is in service of what is ultimately, a positive worldview, in service to some larger, virtuous, system. (By “virtuous,” I guess I mean something like “reliably aligned with my deepest beliefs.”)

My agitation, of late (I’m thinking), is due, at least in part, to a feeling that certain systems I’d always assumed to be virtuous are, in their current form, maybe not so.

This is, approximately, a “the center is not holding” type of feeling, at least as I’m experiencing it.

I think many of us can sympathize with this malaise (though in many cases we may have come to these conclusions years or decades ago). Anyway, you may not be shocked to learn that George Saunders's conclusion is that it's not just reasonable, but actually good, to keep on writing.

I recently made the case, in The New Yorker (among other cases I tried to make), that one symptom of contemporary life is that, as overwhelmed with information as we are (and as non-neutral as that information often is – that is, as agenda-laced as it tends to be), it makes sense that a person might sometimes feel outgunned and ineffective and inadequately engaged. A person might, that is, feel that he is not doing all that he should be doing.

But sometimes, I’ve found, this can lead to a sense of failure or paralysis which, paradoxically, means that one really is doing less than one can.

It’s such a short time we have on this earth, to be happy, to be present, to perform, every day, whatever acts of kindness we can.

Maybe, we could construe “writing a beautiful, timeless story” as a large-scale act of kindness, with the potential to bless anyone who reads it, on into the future, long after these hardships have resolved and others have arisen.

Maybe it's just motivated reasoning from Saunders, and the argument makes a lot more sense when applied to a world-famous author with the influence to end up making cases in The New Yorker, but I did find it fairly persuasive (which may be motivated reasoning from me).

So don't worry, I'm not going to stop writing this newsletter to dedicate my time to political action. I'll stop writing this newsletter to spend more time watching movies.

Item 2: a list

1997 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture, ranked:

1. Fargo (1997)
2. The English Patient (1997)
3. Jerry Maguire (1997)
4. Secrets & Lies (1997)
5. Shine (1997)

Item 3: a media recommendation

Item 4: word of the week

Pentacle

Congratulations on your new protractor but I'm not going to let you scribble all over grandma and start calling her the Queen of Pentacles.

Item 5: a photograph

See ya!

I know, I know. That's not a photograph! But it's a scan of an old book so technically - technically - it's a photo. Also, this newsletter is free so stop complaining.

Thanks for reading. Again next week.