I talk about my personal experiences and inner life not out of self-obsession (OK, not ONLY out of self-obsession). I feel that people in our society cannot hear their inner voices. (Fitzgerald built an entire scene around it in Tender is the Night. The characters all try to decide who is American in a European bar, and the "tell" that lets them know is whether they can sit still.) The reasons why, I will go into later, but here I want to note why I don't write much about "popular" culture and news stories. They are myths. Not in the misunderstanding of that word as meaning "untrue stories." But in its meaning as "stories onto which each person can project their inner feelings." And when you deal with that, you deal with an archetype that is universal and not individual. Any opinion I offer is merely that: an opinion, a yea-or-nay to be shared or not by others. But my THOUGHTS about an event, my FEELINGS about it … those are worth considering because they are individual and arrived it through reflection and articulation. In fact, people hide behind opinions because they shield their feelings and thoughts. Opinions are easier to deal with (psychically).
Also, stories of the day are timely but not timeless. As Oscar Wilde said, "Any ism will soon be a wasm." And Andre Gide called journalism "Anything that will be less interesting tomorrow than it is today."
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