Paying Attention

The routines of living life distract us from important happenings. Later, often much later, we realize an important trend has occurred and grown into a major change in our lives. In quiet moments we ask, “When did that happen?”

The answer becomes more obvious as our routines shift to new patterns. The changes were evolving bit by bit over time. With current information, we can now see how things change in small ways. Of course these combine to construct a new reality.

To live life fully we need to be open to experiences and new ideas. But that requires we pay attention to the details. Not an easy task, but we do have two excellent resources to rely on: independent journalism and educators who study what and how come.

By limiting journalism to impossible standards, truth and facts are hidden. The opposite is easily spoken as fact. These need refutation, analysis and freedom of thought. Journalists do this well, and have done it for centuries. It is why strong societies exist in the first place. Freedom of the press is essential in maintaining a free society.

And educators? Wow! How social order, organizations, commerce, science and governance, and yes, even art, are known and understood. Such institutions are built in tiny stages over vast reaches of time. Academicians research, ponder and study the cause, effect and result of life events. They distill meaning from this work. They produce broader understanding. They share this knowledge with students, consumers of information, and governments. Not only is knowledge expanded in this way, but it also teaches others how to learn in the first place. That is the function or mission of education: to learn how to learn, not just what.

Limiting education limits learning and discovery. It also limits a society’s ability to understand and manage itself. And yet that is what our national government is currently doing.

We cannot possibly know any of this without paying attention to the details in the first place. Who among us has done so? At what cost to the rest of us?

I think the answer is obvious. Others are using this to advance their own control, power and wealth. The rest of us are going to pay for it long term until we take it back with intelligence, understanding and attention to those details.

Best this happens sooner than later.

April 7, 2025

   

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