--George Orwell
When I was new to the craft of professional writing, I fell
in love with one particular word: “crucial”, meaning, “decisive or critical; of
great importance.” I suppose I was smitten with that word because I imagined it
brought gravitas to my writing. It was crucial to use ‘crucial’ as a crucial descriptor,
to heighten the crucial nature of my story and reach that crucial reader.
Right?
It drove my editor absolutely crazy. “John: if everything is
crucial then nothing is really crucial,” she warned me. “Use ‘crucial’ only if something is really crucial. Spare the hyperbole. Chill out.”
A good lesson for writing. A good lesson for life too.
If we are always crying wolf—THIS IS SO CRUCIAL--eventually
no one will believe us. If we imagine every
bump in the road is an emergency, we’ll scan for threats 24/7. If we perceive every
twinge in our bodies as life threatening, we’ll obsessively check our various symptoms
on webmd.com. (Not that I’d ever do that.)
No system can run at full throttle all the time, on the
constant fuels of fear and worry and anxiety. Eventually it will seize up. Fry its
circuits. Shut down. In small doses, adrenaline is life saving. It helps us
respond to real danger. But in large doses, adrenaline exhausts the body and threatens
burnout. That’s true for human bodies and spirits and true for our collective body
politic too, for us as a nation, in our shared lives as citizens and neighbors.
That’s important to remember because right now, in this
weird time in our history, everything, EVERYTHING, every news story, every news
leak, every breaking issue, all the news, on the news: it seems to be so darn crucial.
Right?
SO CRUCIAL!!!!!!!
There’s no minor news any more, only major
developments. There’s no slow news days,
only full news days. The nation anxiously awaits the next terrible or tantrum-filled
tweet from our Tweeter in Chief. I’ve
been a joyful and engaged consumer of the news since my time as a newspaper
boy, but these days I’m instead often consumed by the news, as are so, so many
of my fellow citizens. What if I miss something?
Did you hear the latest?! What did he say?!
And so what I need to tell myself more, what I have been
telling the folks I serve as pastor, is this crucial spiritual advice. (No exaggeration.)
What to do when life feels anxious. When all events seem so crucial, even if sometimes
they are not.
Breathe. BREATHE.
Step back. Take a break from the
news, a fast, maybe a full day a week. It will still be there when you return. Put more of your restless energy into doing
something (organize, volunteer, protest, donate, act) and less of your energy
into just passively watching or reading the news. Return to the places in your
life that feel true and can be trusted, no matter what is happening in the
world. Start with your own house of
worship or faith tradition. Pray. Give it up and over to God and the Universe.
Take the nervous energy provoked by the news and then take it out: for a long
walk, a vigorous run, a spirited swim, a fun bike ride, a hike in the hills and
leave the phone off, or better yet, leave it at home.
Can everything really be so crucial?
Strange days. When our
national life is so intense, like someone forgot to turn down the sound and the
TV is always on. Strange days. When our media is both a very good friend of
democracy and a warped lens through which life is shown in such a distorted
way. Strange days: when those we trust to lead us are so much more devoted to
self interest than the common good.
That’s the news today. Some of it crucial. Some not so
much. Some good. Some bad. So breathe, America. Just breathe.
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