Grocery store racks, newsstand racks, bookstore racks, mailboxes, and coffee tables display magazines that serve every subculture from scientists to beauticians. They seem to self-renew, appearing with different covers and topics weekly or monthly. It’s hard to keep up.
So, we don’t. If we do subscribe, we choose something that pertains to our individual subculture: Knitting, tools, guns, whatever. If we read magazines occasionally, such as we would by picking one up for a plane ride, we scan for topics of interest on the cover, pay with the idea that we’ll learn something new or find great entertainment, and then flip flimsy pages. Always new until we read them, the articles hold the promise of information that will enhance our lives.
So, we buy and read. And then we achieve a goal that we don’t want: We reach disappointment. The promise of the article leaves us with wanting more. “Cancer Cure around the Corner,” “New Car Runs on Thoughts,” “How To Rear the Perfect Child,” and more, from physical science through technology, to social science—all with the promise of enhancement.
Our popular magazines might reflect something positive about our minds. There’s machinery in the brain that desires optimism. “Whoa!” you say. “What about all those pessimistic people?”
Maybe we do end all our pursuits in some disappointment. Maybe some pessimism is also built into the brain. It might be the result of experience as though each of us has read too many promises in too many articles, all apparently ending in emptiness and the reality we knew before we bought the shiny cover.
There must be some desire for optimism, however. Magazine sales depend on it. The brain can seek renewal even with the history of failure. And every so often, we pick up a magazine in the hope of a promise fulfilled in some glimmer of complete understanding.
It’s in the renewing of our pursuit that draws us to magazines. It almost doesn’t even matter what the pursuit is. We pursue. The brain has its own subscription. The magazines just keep coming, piling up more promises we want to fulfill. Attracted by interesting covers and captivating titles, we look even if we don’t buy. We can’t help ourselves. It’s that little bit of underlying and irrepressible optimism that subscribes.
So, we don’t. If we do subscribe, we choose something that pertains to our individual subculture: Knitting, tools, guns, whatever. If we read magazines occasionally, such as we would by picking one up for a plane ride, we scan for topics of interest on the cover, pay with the idea that we’ll learn something new or find great entertainment, and then flip flimsy pages. Always new until we read them, the articles hold the promise of information that will enhance our lives.
So, we buy and read. And then we achieve a goal that we don’t want: We reach disappointment. The promise of the article leaves us with wanting more. “Cancer Cure around the Corner,” “New Car Runs on Thoughts,” “How To Rear the Perfect Child,” and more, from physical science through technology, to social science—all with the promise of enhancement.
Our popular magazines might reflect something positive about our minds. There’s machinery in the brain that desires optimism. “Whoa!” you say. “What about all those pessimistic people?”
Maybe we do end all our pursuits in some disappointment. Maybe some pessimism is also built into the brain. It might be the result of experience as though each of us has read too many promises in too many articles, all apparently ending in emptiness and the reality we knew before we bought the shiny cover.
There must be some desire for optimism, however. Magazine sales depend on it. The brain can seek renewal even with the history of failure. And every so often, we pick up a magazine in the hope of a promise fulfilled in some glimmer of complete understanding.
It’s in the renewing of our pursuit that draws us to magazines. It almost doesn’t even matter what the pursuit is. We pursue. The brain has its own subscription. The magazines just keep coming, piling up more promises we want to fulfill. Attracted by interesting covers and captivating titles, we look even if we don’t buy. We can’t help ourselves. It’s that little bit of underlying and irrepressible optimism that subscribes.
RSS Feed