Sunday, May 10, 2009

Tony breaks no DVDs.

Yesterday, I said that Wuxi traffic is a source of material for me to blog about. I should also have mentioned that I was thinking how I seemed to have so little to blog about the past week. But after reading this quote from Chesterton, I realize I should be thankful.

It is the one great weakness of journalism as a picture of our modern existence, that it must be a picture made up entirely of exceptions. We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, "Mr. Wilkinson Still Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet." They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complex picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only concerned with the minority.

A thought has always lingered in the back of my mind that the stuff that happens for the newspapers has nothing to do with my life or most people's lives. This blog about nothing that I write does have the virtue of actually talking about ordinary things. Whether or not my socks are inside-out is a nice problem to have. And nice problems are to be celebrated. Sure, you can float in the clouds, but you do have to wash your feet. And sitting on the couch is a nice way to rest your legs.

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