{"id":348,"date":"2023-07-26T07:41:18","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T07:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/?p=348"},"modified":"2023-07-26T07:41:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T07:41:19","slug":"escape-into-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/reads\/escape-into-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Escape into Meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Excerpts from the book of Evan Puschak<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading Emerson was like watching magic. Somehow he was able to retrieve the cloudy, half-formed thoughts in my mind and write them down with astonishing eloquence\u2014a century and a half before I was born! This is the magic of articulation, of putting things exactly right, and it\u2019s been the basic obsession of all my work since that afternoon in Barnes & Noble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know the experience I\u2019m talking about: someone phrases something perfectly and an idea that\u2019s been a fog in the background of your mind suddenly solidifies. A lot of the time we aren\u2019t fully aware of our thoughts and opinions, so when another person articulates one, it feels strange, like a surprise coming from within.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Emerson, I learned two fundamental truths: first, that we learn by expressing, not by thinking, which is to say that knowledge doesn\u2019t really exist until you can write it down<\/mark>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s something very wrong about the iPhone being a policeman of its own use. Apple builds the shiniest, most addictive and useful tool in human history, then installs an app that\u2019s supposed to help us use it less? That\u2019s like McDonald\u2019s serving Big Macs with a note that reads: \u201cEat only 30 percent of this Big Mac, as a whole Big Mac is not good for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Screen time management tools are little more than PR stunts, from another industry promoting solutions to problems it creates. <\/mark>Tobacco giants did (and do) the same; so do oil companies. In 2005, British Petroleum popularized the term \u201ccarbon footprint\u201d to divert the public\u2019s attention away from BP\u2019s role in climate change and toward individual responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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None of us needs more research to verify something we feel all the time. At a Senate hearing in 2020, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified that he didn\u2019t \u201cthink the research has been conclusive\u201d on whether social media is addictive. Despite the fact that there is plenty of good research finding that it is (and that social media addiction correlates positively with serious mental health problems like depression), I don\u2019t need an academic paper to tell me what\u2019s happening inside my head. I\u2019ve got proof coming out the wazoo. When my laptop is taking a second to buffer a YouTube video and I grab my phone to scroll Facebook rather than wait\u2014that\u2019s my proof.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not all content consumption is passive. Good books, films, journalism, videos, podcasts, etc., encourage you to think critically. <\/mark>When you\u2019ve finished a book or an album, there should be a period of time for you to reflect on what you\u2019ve experienced. You should have a break to let your mind wander, to examine your response, to write your thoughts down, to discuss them with others. That\u2019s one reason I love seeing movies at the theater.<\/mark> We talk about preserving the communal experience of watching movies, but what about when the movie ends, that ritual of slowly getting up, emerging into the lobby, and waiting until someone finally says, \u201cSo what did you think?\u201d The conversation that follows, in the car ride home or over drinks at a bar, is what makes the passive viewing experience active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The other thing Greenfeld\u2019s theory implies is that the border between culture and individual minds is porous. We\u2019re already thinking with a language we didn\u2019t invent, with knowledge we didn\u2019t generate, with conventional wisdom established long before we were born. How many of our ideas are original?<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as I spend more time online, I\u2019m getting better at ascertaining the internet\u2019s opinions, instead of developing my own. After I watch a YouTube video or see an Instagram post, I instinctively scroll to the comments to see what others think. The number of likes and dislikes offers me a ready-made judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong: you can learn a lot on the internet. You can learn more than at any previous time in history. But ingesting information is only half of learning. The other half, the more important half, is responding to that information, thinking critically about it, about what it implies.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When those who have spent their entire working lives trying to understand an issue cannot find consensus, how does the layperson determine what is right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But there\u2019s a more fundamental reason for climate change skepticism: the anxiety of knowing how little we actually know. For all their accredited institutions, their rigorous processes and impact factors, scientists are essentially saying, Trust us.<\/mark> There\u2019s an unshakable feeling of vulnerability that comes with trust like that, in which a mass of knowledge is outsourced and remains obscure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the nineteenth century, rag-and-bone men scavenged unwanted household items and sold them to merchants. That\u2019s what Yeats envisions as the poet\u2019s job: to scavenge items from the heart and sell them to the public, to weave all that detritus into images and stories and truth.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When Superman wakes up in the morning, he\u2019s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red S, that\u2019s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears\u2014the glasses, the business suit\u2014that\u2019s the costume. That\u2019s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He\u2019s weak. He\u2019s unsure of himself. He\u2019s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman\u2019s critique on the whole human race.\u201d<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What about Superman? Does the Boy Scout in blue tights, the tireless defender of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, fit the modern sensibility? Not in the way Batman does, that\u2019s for sure. We can sympathize with someone\u2019s parents being killed, but can we sympathize with someone\u2019s alien home planet exploding?<\/mark> We can relate to a man risking death to avenge his loved ones, but can we relate to an invincible being who protects the entire world? We can empathize with a crusader, but what about a man of steel?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we can empathize with Superman, but it\u2019s harder to pull off. In many ways, the Man of Tomorrow is a relic of values past. He\u2019s a symbol of that goodness we no longer recognize in the world. He\u2019s the epitome of the classic hero the antihero was invented to modernize. His idealism smacks of na\u00efvet\u00e9, and in the comics he\u2019s regularly mocked for this by other heroes, especially Batman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why many consider Superman a boring character. He\u2019s too perfect, too powerful, too vanilla.<\/mark> Even his creators thought so, which is why they invented kryptonite, his Achilles\u2019 heel. As far as vulnerabilities go, kryptonite is not the most creative. It\u2019s little more than a narrative device in physical form, and a blunt one at that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When, for some wacky reason or other, Superman\u2019s powers vanish or decrease significantly, it\u2019s usually cited as an opportunity to \u201chumanize\u201d the character, which implies that Superman is always at risk of becoming unrelatable. And he is. It\u2019s hard to get Superman right. It\u2019s hard to make any Golden Age hero relevant to a modern reader, but it\u2019s especially hard with Superman. De-powering him is one way to do it, but it\u2019s not the only way. There are terrific stories in which Supes is fully powered and fully relatable. And there are dull stories where he gets a bloody lip. I don\u2019t think you humanize Superman by focusing on the physical. He is too perfect in that respect. But just because he\u2019s perfect physically doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s perfect in every way. Superman is not without psychological weaknesses. He\u2019s not invulnerable to emotion. This, I think, is what writers should focus on.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bob Proehl said, \u201cThe best Superman is whichever one you were reading when you were twelve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With such strength, Clark could\u2019ve done anything. No one alive can check his power. So when he wants to play high school football and his father says no, why does Clark listen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The corny answer is also the right one: love. The Kents give Clark what every child needs, human or Kryptonian. They are attentive and kindhearted, firm yet patient, affectionate and, most important, present.<\/mark> Their presence is the mirror image of the Waynes\u2019 absence. If Bruce becomes Batman as an act of vengeance, Clark becomes Superman as a reciprocation of the Kents\u2019 love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are things Lois can do that Superman can\u2019t. There are things Clark the reporter can do that he can\u2019t as a superhero. Superhearing and X-ray vision are useful (if probably illegal) investigative tools, but they won\u2019t make a source trust you or sharpen your prose. Superman can save the people of Metropolis from a burning building, but Clark can expose the contractors who cut costs by using cheap, flammable cladding and the city officials who lined their pockets by looking the other way. To paraphrase Lois from Enemy of the People, Superman can thwart the hammer of evil, but Lois and Clark can go after the arm swinging it, and the system that grants it freedom of motion.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When Clark wakes up in the morning, he\u2019s neither the symbol nor the secret identity. He\u2019s the boy who grew up in Smallville, the son of Jonathan and Martha, the friend and colleague and sometimes husband of Lois Lane, a journalist for a great metropolitan newspaper, an immigrant, a child of adoption who yearns for a family he never met, a person who accepts the responsibility his power implies, who tries to reciprocate the love he received to the world that took him in. Clark Kent is not a critique of the human race. He is part of the human race. In all the ways that matter, including and especially his weaknesses, he is human. He\u2019s one of us. As he says in Lois & Clark: \u201cSuperman is what I can do. Clark is who I am.\u201d<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cA brief moment of happiness is pretty good,\u201d he says. \u201cI also think that just focusing on making money and buying stupid things is a good way of life. I believe materialism gets a bad rap\u2026 If your things don\u2019t make you happy, you\u2019re not getting the right things.<\/mark>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you\u2019re my age or older, maybe you know what I mean. It\u2019s not that we love one another less; it\u2019s that there\u2019s no substitute for physical proximity and the free time of early adulthood. Priorities shift, responsibilities grow, we make choices. I\u2019m as big a culprit as any. I keep moving to new cities, unable to settle. I see photos of my friends\u2019 kids, and they look so old, and I realize how much I\u2019ve missed. I no longer share in all the biggest developments of their lives. Sending a text, making a call, video-chatting, double-tapping an Instagram post\u2014it\u2019s not the same, is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this how it happens? Not with a bang, but with gaps between hangs that gradually get larger, and you forget to send that birthday message, and you\u2019re surprised to learn they actually left that job six months ago, and \u201cWhere are you living these days?\u201d and the only time you all get together is at weddings, but the weddings are running out, then months turn into years into decades and you\u2019re telling optimistic thirtysomethings that this is when friendships begin to fade. <\/mark>Please do not let me be that guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not resigning us to that fate, not yet. I\u2019m old enough now to know that it\u2019s possible to grow distant from your closest friends. But it\u2019s not a foregone conclusion. These people mean too much to me. These people are me. The destabilizing feeling that sinks my stomach at the thought of losing them proves that better than any model of identity, better even than the brilliance of Virginia Woolf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019ll work to stay in their lives. I\u2019ll make an effort to see them. I\u2019ll listen and share, ask for advice, tell them I love them. The distance between us makes it harder, but it\u2019s only our bodies that are distant. And the body misleads.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Excerpts from the book of Evan Puschak Reading Emerson was like watching magic. Somehow he was able to retrieve the cloudy, half-formed thoughts in my mind and write them down with astonishing eloquence\u2014a century and a half before I was born! This is the magic of articulation, of putting things exactly right, and it\u2019s been the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reads"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"nl","enabled_languages":["tl","en","nl"],"languages":{"tl":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"nl":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}