When I look up "first newspaper", I read about a newspaper published in Rome in the 1st century. So, the idea of the news has been around for a long time. Once, during the last 40 years, a local professor submitted an item to the campus newsletter that said he had spent the previous month in the library reading. We all know that such an item would not usually be considered news. A guy who is supposed to read plenty is reading plenty. If you see him reading, you will see a man looking at a book or a magazine. He might turn a page while you watch but that is about all you can expect to see. What gets into the media, indeed what gets into our consciousness, is often movement, excitement, danger, difficulty. It might be positive information that makes us happy, such as the local high school team winning an important game. But ordinary activities don't usually make it onto our radar. They can't be expected to. There is too much going on. Besides, we need to keep some notice available for the latest breaking alert that we might need to pay attention to.
So, all the more reason to look around once in a while for admirable activity that is typical but still heroic, still valuable, something we should be thankful for or we might want to copy. There is plenty of it around us all the time. Keeping the roads in repair, the electricity flowing through the wires, keeping emergency rooms open and grocery shelves stocked, clothes getting dry cleaned - things go on all the time that we need or gain from and appreciate.
Autumn is a good time for looking for unusual activities. As the trees prepare for winter, a maple that hasn't caught your eye for months can surprise you in bright yellow, standing in the sunlight where it has stood for years but now demanding appreciative notice. In the same way, the driver who has delivered ice cream to the local coffee shop for years might suddenly stand out as a reliable, steady source of good stuff that I have enjoyed for years. That ice cream requires many heads and many hands to get to me. Here in autumn, I can try to be extra appreciative.
The media and the beauty industry focus on our biological wiring, using pictures of young women in the prime of biological readiness. Our eyes are drawn to such bodies and such skin. But we older men know that wrinkled skin, droopy eyes, bigger tummies have their own beauty. We can see beauty every day in the woman who has lived, has accomplished, has learned and knows. Made-up eyes or dyed hair can detract from the real beauty in living beings all around us. We have even reached the point where we can see the beauty in men, including older men, the everyday achievements and melodic calm of adults all around us.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
