“The world is too much with us,” said William Wordsworth, lamenting the modern world and its divorce from nature—more true today than ever before because of the constant drumbeat of weirdness occurring daily around the world. From the dismantling of American democracy, the rise of anti-democratic extremism, wars in Gaza and the Ukraine and elsewhere, climate disasters and the warming of the planet, us humans are not in great shape.
It seems impossible to not wallow in our disfunction. You can’t listen to the radio or look at your computer or have lunch with a friend without being bombarded by the daily Trump outrages, the killings in Gaza, or the latest antisemitic and anti- Muslim incidents. The world seems to be less human, and many of us are just tuning out. We have all been told by friends or relatives that they have stopped listening to the news, withdrawing and unwilling to be depressed so that they can enjoy life a little more.
Just as an aside, the best example of the bigotry and dismantling of the American ideal in the last few days was the supposed justification in Trump’s Executive Order on Immigration that, based on national security and terrorist worries, all the tens of millions of the horrible people who live in 12 counties (all predominately Muslim and/or Black) will not be allowed to enter the U.S. and that a further seven nations (all predominately Muslin and/or Black) will have their citizens’ immigration status curtailed. This pronouncement caused the Cato Institute, a well-regarded research think tank devoted to personal freedom and considered a bastion of many conservative ideals, to do a study to determine the actual amount of terrorist acts committed in the United States by citizens of the aforementioned countries. Last night, NPR reported that since 1959, they have found one.
I apologize for the last paragraph, since I really didn’t want to discuss the details of our collective discontent but rather possible palliative actions we can take to live a happier life in the midst of chaos. One way is to tune out any media and limit our internet usage (difficult) to more pleasant things. I like Mozart, art, family activities involving nature, the joy of young kids, reading, personal sports, and learning something new that engages your attention in order to master it. Pretty obvious, difficult to do, but required for one’s sanity, especially if you are involved daily with opposing the worst of the administration’s policies in court.
Here are a few possibilities:
Golf: turning one’s obsessive doomscrolling to obsession over why you can’t stop slicing. It is even better if you walk the course and get some exercise rather than taking a golf cart. It also is perfectly acceptable to have a beer after a hot day on the course.
Try learning a foreign language. For me this requires total attention to master even the simplest words or grammar, thus taking my mind off of anything else. My Italian remains terrible.
Fishing, particularly sitting and drifting in a boat on a hot summer’s day contemplating the beauty of lake and knowing that I am trying to outsmart an animal that actually has an IQ lower than most politicians.
Tanglewood: The season is incredible, from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to the Pops to James Taylor—there is something for everyone. While I am not a great fan of overdoing the picnic options on the lawn, it is hard to beat a nice dinner sitting on a blanket under a slowly darkening Berkshires sky listening to Yo-Yo Ma. (This year he is appearing three times; the Beethoven concert should be transporting).
Look at art—carefully. Leave your phone in your pocket and spend time actually seeing the work. The more time you devote to looking, the better the experience; the object is not to preserve hundreds of photos you will probably never look at but to see and enjoy the original. We are blessed to have wonderful museums here: The Clark, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and Mass MoCA are a joy. For me, the Clark’s Piero della Francesca “Madonna and Child and Four Angels” is one of the most remarkable paintings ever made and reinforces my belief that since humans are capable of creating such great art, all is not lost in these troubled times.
This too shall pass, but we must work to make that happen.
