The Muddled Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s the 18th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 and I’m still not sure what to say. Some historians say give it 20 years.
There’s a pretty good column about the world we lost in the New York Times this morning from a Muslim named Omer Aziz who was only 11 at the time, author of the forthcoming book, Brown Boy: A Story of Race, Religion, and Inheritance.
There are also several scathing reviews of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Talking to Strangers, on the Times web front page. I posted the links on Facebook.
I cite Gladwell’s book on success in my book, Jump On The Bus, but perhaps I put too much faith in one Canadian science writer’s ability to condense academic research into popular journalism.
Sometimes I think some people get lost in the data and lose the most important point in the name of selling things like books or promoting podcasts, movies or television shows. Does every freaking thing we do have to be all about the money?
That’s one reason I write independently on the web. I don’t have to satisfy a New York editor who has to make sure everything he publishes sells millions of copies just to keep the lights on in a big city skyscraper and pay for summer houses in the Hamptons and Florida.
I can explore obscure mountains in a camper van for cheap and write honestly about what I think and feel without worrying much about the profit motive. I mean so far there’s not much profit in this at all, but so far it has paid the expenses — for the past 14 years at least.
That’s all I ever got out of any job I ever had anyway. The most money I ever made in any one year of my life was about $50,000. But that was plenty to pay the rent and utilities on a $525 a month apartment Uptown in New Orleans, pre-Katrina, as well as the bank note and insurance on a Plymouth Voyager van with a canoe on top. It was enough to have all kinds of fun, exploring the culinary and other delights of the city near the mouth of the Mighty Mississippi River.
The Alabama author Rick Bragg, who also lived in New Orleans then and worked for the New York Times, once told me in a fit of pique: “You have more fun than anyone I know.”
He also told me I was the only poor man he knew who could make a living free-lancing.
That run only lasted about four years, which is about typical of the stretches of time that make up my life and career. You might think this points to some flaw in a person’s character. I mean what does it mean if a man can’t find one job and keep it his entire life?
Sorry, but that’s not how this world usually works anymore. The average American professional now changes careers at least twice in his life, if not three times or more. Mobility became an advantage in careers all the way back to the 1980s. Many people have to move to make a living and advance in life.
To me, it means that I grow bored with a place after a while, and reach a “tipping point” — sorry for the pun of referring to another Gladwell book — when it becomes hard to find new stories to tell about a place. So I tend to move on.
Quite frankly I find that is now happening after five years of coming to Washington, D.C. every year. While some political journalists are so enamored of the game of politics that they can spend their entire lives covering elections like sports writers cover games, this holds little appeal for me. I want to go see a new place and find out all about it and tell new stories.
While like many people I do make plans in life and try to follow them, I try to remain open to new information and am willing to change plans if I run across a better option.
If I took a job at a university and acquired tenure, I’m afraid I would feel stuck and stale there after a while. Since I started exploring the National Park Service, I’ve run across more than one ranger who seems bored to tears with the “job.” Of course rangers as well as volunteers can move around and work in different parks. That’s one of the things that makes me interested in it.
Same with corporate newspapers and magazines. The free-lance life has always suited me better than a staff job. But the whole free-lance journalism thing started drying up about 14 years ago. The thing to do was to publish on the web, even though the newspaper people still didn’t consider it “publishing” unless there was ink and paper.
Since Trump took over the White House, a lot of things have changed, again, here and around the country. People have tried to turn back to the old world, reading newspapers and books again. Some even seem willing to spend money on these things in ways they had not been willing to do for a decade. Everyone was reading blogs and getting news from email lists back in 2005, then from social media by 2010.
The problems of fake news and Trump scared some people to death, so they went backwards to try to feel safe again.
It’s hard to tell if this is working. It’s too soon I guess.
All I know is that yes, the world changed on 9/11, for me as well as just about everyone else on the planet. I tell my story in the book and will not repeat it again here.
The born rich seemed to get over it pretty quickly, it seems to me, while most of the effects are still being felt by the poor and those somewhere in the middle.
The economic numbers crunchers may say the economy is booming. Yet one of the most convincing candidates running for president says the U.S. government should give every American $1,000 a month to survive on because machines have taken the jobs they might have had in the old world. By the old world here, I don’t mean Europe before white men discovered America. I mean the world before the 1990s when the techies in Silicon Valley created computers and the internet.
My sleep has been fitful for the past few nights as if something bad or weird is about to happen. But of course that could just mean Trump will tweet something even crazier tomorrow. We are all riding this reality TV show presidency roller coaster now, whether we like it or not.
I’ve spent quite a few days of late in a camp chair in the mountains not paying attention on purpose. But then I come back to town and realize that we have no choice but to pay attention, at least some of us, or there’s no telling how he will take us off the edge next.
It even has me wondering which direction I should go in next. North, south or west. I’ve got some more trouble shooting and thinking to do first. So I better get offline and get to it. I’ll let you all know what’s next when I figure it out.
Stay safe. And remember, try to find a way to be happy. That’s what really matters. I ask my dog that every day. His name is Jefferson, and of course the pursuit of happiness is the quintessential American question.
My Jefferson is half blind and deaf now, and partially crippled with arthritis. Some days I now call him “crip.” But he doesn’t complain much, unless I go out of his site. As long as we are together, he is happy, never mind the minor pain in his right front foot.
When I rescued and adopted him nearly nine years ago, I vowed to take care of him no matter what. It is a responsibility I will fulfill, even if he sometimes annoys the hell out of me. As I type this he is pacing back and forth, wishing I would get off the computer and pay attention to him. I tell him he could hang out outside. But if I let him out, he would just bark and come knocking at the door to get back in – with me.
It’s nice to be loved, but…
Are you happy? If not, try something different. That’s what I tend to do. This makes me happy.
It would be nice if there was more profit in it and more people were willing to support it financially.
It may not make a best selling book that New York publishers and newspaper editors want to sell. But hey, it works for me. Do what works for you.
