Where’s The Focus?

You may have noticed that the headlines are screaming all sorts of stories, trying to capture your attention. Whatever the stage of life you are at, it is increasingly difficult to ignore the urgency of the messages. The planet is overheating and what are we  going to do about it? Young children are dying or are in great distress and can’t you spare a few dollars from your overly rich life to save them?

There’s a war going on that has put our world food system at risk, and what are we going to do about the possibility that it may spread into a nuclear confrontation?

 Politicians are doing the unthinkable, women are losing control over their own bodies, our libraries are being ravaged and just going to the grocery store or to school can get you shot dead for no reason.

There is a war going on that is raising questions about the morality of many individual’s views of the world. We see masses of people in the streets advocating ethnic cleansing, murder, and, the erasure of millions of lives based on a lie. We see that happening at centers of learning that we hold to be among the most reputed in the world.

How about random invasions of privacy? How about scams? How about thefts of your identity, how about captures of your computer for ransom, ransom’s of your enterprise, your power service, whatever? Is there anywhere we can hide?

Just in case we are not yet satisfied with just confronting our long-known unknowns, this last month we have ChatGBT. It is alarming us with the potential effect of unbridled Artificial Intelligence on human society.

The genie is already out of the bottle, and we hardly know where to turn. Which segment of our labor force will it make unemployable? Does what we see on our screens have substance in reality or is just a figment of a computer’s imagination? Will we ever know in the future what is real or what is false?

Last week we read that one of our bright minds has traced an extra-galactic meteor to its resting place a mile under water. He found on it physical evidence of alien technology. What should we think of that?

We all have a responsibility to ourselves, and to others, to pay attention to the important things in our personal lives. We have to put bread on the table. We have to provide the material and emotional support for those who depend on us. We need to make sure that our own personal needs of various kinds are being met as well. If we don’t, we won’t function well in any of the important areas of our lives.

So our focus is naturally on the close and the immediate. Nearly all of the people around us, and we ourselves, are devoting our attention to matters close at hand. But many of us know about some of these things happening out there beyond our ken.

At the edges of our consciousness, however, we know they can and will impact the nature of our lives eventually. It can’t help but be of concern. When we have a moment to lift our heads from the daily grind, the enormity of the unknowns we face can be daunting.

We can’t help but be divided of focus these days. That’s what’s called living in the real world.