Yeah, but...

This morning I am suffering from a terrible case of the "yeah, but...s". Everything I think about, read, or hear on the news causes an automatic response: reactionary cynicism. I call this my "pithy" mood. I can see I am in for a very long day.

I will give just a few examples of things that passed through my mind before 7 a.m. this morning.

Example One:

Reading Title: "Retire Your Stress" [from New Outlook, Fall 2003, page 12]
Quote:
The "Quebec City clinical psychologist, who has specialized for the past 30 years in helping people prepare for the unique pressure they face as they get older..." says, "there are pressures aplenty... Most, however, are related to being cut off from environments that have long provided money, friends and purpose." [Ennui comes to mind]
My Reaction:
What this guy does not seem concerned about is that people with good jobs outside the home, who retire with good pensions, are a minority subset of Canadians who are cut off from environments that provide money, friends and purpose. Fair enough, this unconsidered majority could not pay his fees.
Quote:
" While drugs are available to counter serious stress-related problems such as depression, Dr. xxxxxx says healthy living and doing things you love will help make the transition to retirement a smooth one."
My Reaction:
Common sense really, I agree entirely. Since most of the people suffering from "ennui" are unemployed, underemployed, or non-employed, and living from hand to mouth or worse, the advice of "doing things you love" would sound a lot like "let them eat cake".
[This extrapolation is a bit extreme, I know, but what you have here is an example of a mind attempting to grasp the gap between the reality of the significant majority, and what seems like good advice. Perhaps the discrepancy is a journalistic issue.]

Example Two:

Horrifying epiphany! Or not.
Topic:
Women's Bras
My Reaction:
I was first thinking about back braces this morning. Then my mind wandered over to the discomfort of women's bras, particularly for small to medium breasted women. Then came the epiphany, which may be whimsy.
I have been advised not to use a back brace continually, as the back muscles may become lazy, necessitating further need for the brace. What if accepting the uplifting support of a bra actually increases the likelihood of breast sag in women of mature years, when gravity is beginning to dominate the physical form. Are there any muscles that work to naturally support the human female breast? Will these muscles atrophy with the use of women's bras?
[OK, so this is not an issue on which the world turns. I told you it was going to be a long day around here.]

Example Three:

Reading:
I just read a piece on the internet where a journalist stated that writing the news is about maintaining "strict objectivity".
My Reaction:
Objectivity is hotly debated concept in the academic world. Is objectivity possible? My current belief is that objectivity is relative.
If this were true, then maintaining "strict objectivity" would represent following a conceptual structure of some kind, one that offered a cohesive logic with its own rules and syntax. My guess is, that is why journalists have to be trained; they must learn how to follow the particular conceptual structure desired by those who hire journalists; and to reject all other conceptual structures.
All this is to say that I suspect that journalists are trained to adhere strictly to the desired form of "objectivity". Perhaps that is why I find the presentation of the news overwhelmingly boring and banal. However, it is the only option available; what can you do? One does manage to tease out a few salient pieces of information, however out of context they may be. And hey, it could be worse, what if the news reflected the interests of large corporations and political ambition, rather than the public good?

You get the picture.

I have turned off the news, and stopped reading magazines in any format. I will scrub floors. I will line cupboards. I will concentrate on reading a novel. The book I am reading is Japanese literature translated into English. The references to cultural phenomena in this book cannot be dissected to any great degree, as I have not been to Japan and have no first-hand knowledge of their culture.

If all this fails to slow my cynical ramblings, I will focus on lesson 28 in my programming tutorial series. Math concepts are always good fun and perfect for escaping reality. It can be fun to adhere to a "strictly objective" set of rules and syntax. And programming language allows me to manipulate the enironment so skillfully; I can present information on the web just as I desire, while strictly adhering to one form of objectivity.

Sigh...