{"id":29164,"date":"2023-01-03T20:34:07","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T01:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=29164"},"modified":"2023-01-04T09:09:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T14:09:07","slug":"what-we-talked-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2023\/01\/what-we-talked-about\/","title":{"rendered":"What “We Talked” About"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times, bless its left-o’center heart, posted a Cosmo-worthy teaser* for its 2022 end-of-year Opinion feature<\/a>:\u00a0 “You Argued a Lot This Year. There’s One Important Question You Need to Answer Now<\/em>.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

O, Oracle of Omniscience, pray tell:\u00a0 What were<\/em> my arguments about in 2022 and what may that One Important Question be?\u00a0 This subscribing mind wants to know.<\/p>\n

This Times piece named 22 topics that “made us rage, roll our eyes, and change our minds in 2022.”\u00a0 Or so they deem.\u00a0 Here are the 22 items that the Times claimed we<\/em> (whoever the journalistic we<\/em> are) supposedly debated:<\/p>\n

Will Smith’s slap.\u00a0 The January 6 Committee.\u00a0 Crime.\u00a0 Queen Elizabeth.\u00a0 Twitter.\u00a0 Bitcoin.\u00a0 Student loan forgiveness.\u00a0 Mask-wearing.\u00a0 The Supreme Court.\u00a0 The Depp-Heard case.\u00a0 Transgender youth.\u00a0 Midterm election results.\u00a0 Politically-vandalized paintings.\u00a0 Hybrid work.\u00a0 Inflation.\u00a0 Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan.\u00a0 Art by artificial intelligence.\u00a0 Expectations of college courses.\u00a0 Saudi-sponsored golf and human rights.\u00a0 Affirmative action.\u00a0 Ukraine.\u00a0 The End of Democracy and\/or The World.<\/p>\n

I may have discussed five or so of these items with my spouse (best friend) last year, but nowhere near all of them.\u00a0 And it seems like most, Ukraine excepted, took place ages ago?\u00a0 (I mean, Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan.)\u00a0 Lastly, I hardly debated<\/em> any of these with anyone, as I avoid confrontation by nature.\u00a0 It leads me to think that the New York Times decides what is important<\/em> based on what has already appeared in the New York Times, rather than what real people say they are actually talking about.\u00a0 Wow.<\/p>\n

To rectify this oversight, here are some things I<\/em> remember talking about in 2022:<\/p>\n

Our health and our friends’ health and our relatives’ health.\u00a0 Our children’s happiness and well-being.\u00a0 Our grandchildren’s progress.\u00a0 Family crises.\u00a0 The things that need to get fixed in our house.\u00a0 The cost and hassle and scheduling of getting those things fixed.\u00a0 What is worth watching on Netflix or Prime.\u00a0 My Pet Free Hotels website project.\u00a0 What we want to fix or buy for dinner tonight.\u00a0 When will Donald Trump finally go away\/get sent to jail.\u00a0 And how SNL’s Trump impersonator has really got him down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I tune out the world.\u00a0 It’s that everyday concerns almost always override the things that the media decides are important<\/em> that day, unless we are talking about 9\/11 or armed insurrections or the people who almost die on a football field.\u00a0 But I do know this: I am not invested in Will Smith, and vice versa.\u00a0 Neither Will Smith or the New York Times is talking about me.\u00a0 Neither Will Smith or the New York Times will drive me to my next medical appointment.<\/p>\n

If there’s one selfish thing I would like in the new year — as I do every year — it would be to be more seen<\/em>, not by random folks who post “likes” but by mindful, emotional people with whom I might connect, opening up the possibility of my seeing<\/em> them too.<\/p>\n

Hope springs.<\/p>\n

Oh, I almost forgot, The Times also said there was an Important Question that I needed to answer!\u00a0 It was:\u00a0 Did any of my debates on those so-called important topics cause me to change my mind?<\/p>\n

Really?\u00a0 My ability to be swayed by social media commentary signifies intellectual virtue? Sure, critical thinking has value, but no one (well, maybe 7th-graders) enter an argument bereft of some semblance of a stance.\u00a0 Web-mindedness is not open-mindedness.<\/p>\n

Listening is important, but when the opposing arguments are just plain stupid or biased, all that “we” wind up arguing about is reason versus ignorance.\u00a0 Sadly, I expect more of the same in 2023.\u00a0 Happy New Year.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

* Except Cosmo would have shown more cleavage than the New York Times.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times, bless its left-o’center heart, posted a Cosmo-worthy teaser* for its 2022 end-of-year Opinion feature:\u00a0 “You Argued a Lot This Year. There’s One Important Question You Need to Answer Now.”\u00a0 O, Oracle of Omniscience, pray tell:\u00a0 What … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29164"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29203,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164\/revisions\/29203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}