In the flow of the morning today, already read fascinating articles in the Journal about how remittances from emigrants are propping up authoritarian regimes in places like Venezuela (where they may comprise a third of GDP) and Nicaragua. A profound problem, perhaps a cousin of the Dutch Disease, in which the strength of a nation's currency -- usually driven by the discovery of some natural resource. Then I read an article about Americans' mania for self-storage spaces (perhaps a 10th of Americans lease one) and what a tremendous business it has been to be in in the last decade and change. What a tremendous waste of space brought on by our excess identification with objects.
In a moment of weakness I popped over to Facebook to see if Leslie's husband Walter had finished the Pan-Mass Challenge, a two-day ~180 mile ride he's been doing every year since Leslie had breast cancer 18 years ago. You can donate here. While Leslie hasn't updated status on Facebook about the ride yet, of course he's done with it. In fact, come to think of it, I believe that this year he and his friends tacked on an extra 90 mile day at the beginning because that's how they roll.
Of course, while peaking at Facebook I immediately got distracted. As is not infrequently the case, the source of the distraction was Michael Galinsky, whose productivity across multiple media (photography, writing, music, film) rarely ceases to astound. Nor does his propensity to share it. There are those who would critique people so productive as oversharers and undereditors, but I think it's America and his heart is in the right place so why not.
At the same time, given that I devote so much of my life to triaging the content I ingest due to a surfeit of candidates for my attention, I have to manage my exposure to any given other content creator. As my friend Blue once said, if you're reading, you ain't writing. Often, perhaps that's for the best.
No comments:
Post a Comment