cannot read papers
as they no longer reflect
the world I perceive
Adapted from the passage:
“After twenty years of studying them I am no longer able to read newspapers.
Why?
It’s because they no longer reflect the world I perceive.
I will have to go along with the way I see it even if wrong.
And if they are right, it lacks interest.”
Written by Jim Harrison in the novella, The Man Who Gave Up His Name, published in the collection titled, “Legends of the Fall” by Jim Harrison, New York, Grove Press, 2016.
I still try to read The Guardian and the New York Times every morning with my morning coffee.
I used to try and read USA Today but it’s website defies any real effort to read the stories without a lot of perseverance.
I am speaking of perseverance, of course, from a technical point of view.
Oh to handle all the ads and popups and pop downs and such that make reading online news such a challange.
But of late I am having more and more issues with what I am reading.
I keep asking, what world are these people living in.
The world described more and more in newspapers does not reflect the world I percieve.
One side of the paper can decry the end of the world and those dire portents in the next elections and how if we all could really care about what was happening, we could stop it.
And on the other side of the paper are heart felt discussions of the clothes people wore on the red carpet of the Emmy’s and how the Emmy’s was rigged and whole lot of other stuff that is supposed to be of interest to me.
Maybe it is getting older.
I recently went to a major college football game and while there was much I recognized from when I went to this college as a student, there was much that did not reflect on college football as I perceived it.
I chatted with the lady next to me and she said that they were searching for ways to make if fun for kids.
I guess getting together with your friends along with a keg of beer and going someplace where you could drink in public and yell your head off is no longer fun enough.
Reading this as I type it I decided I better check my drivers license and it says I was born in 1960.
I think I am right on schedule.
No Haiku For You 