There you are, a relatively mind-my-own-business kind of male or female. But you have to peek. You just have to open the newspaper, turn on the TV channel with pundits, or open an online news service. You cover your eyes with fingers open. You pretend to block the view. But like sunlight on a cloudless day, the radiation of news, gossip, and opinion burns through like strong UV light. You want some peace; some shady spot for rest. But you live in a desert beneath a cloudless sky. Very little shade except for that which you provide with a raised, protective hand.
Now you know what traveling across Death Valley, the Sahara, or the Great Sandy Desert was like for pre-industrial pioneers. Sure, everyone faces the problem of little available water and rapid dehydration, but that almost seems minor beneath the wash of uninterrupted daylight. You just want some shade, just want to close your eyes and not have translucent eyelids keeping you from rest. And here’s what makes it worse: This radiation is 24/7. At least those rainless regions get some night.
We might be able to tolerate the incessant light if, just occasionally, it enlightened. Maybe it seems to for some, but generally, the radiation blinds us. As in all things human, perception is the driver. Enlightenment is inferred. The ostensible enlightenment of news and opinion seems itself to be reminiscent of the lyrics of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s “Blinded by the Light” lyrics.
As in many popular—and even in operatic arias—songs, the rhythm requires syllables and words that fit regardless of their sense. So, also, “Blinded by the Light” contains some nonsense lines whose meaning is only subjectively inferable. However, three lines in the song might reveal why so many are so addicted to the blinding light of the incessant 24/7 cycle:
Mama always told me not to look into
The eyes of the sun
But mama, that’s where the fun is.
We know our response when someone says, “Don’t look.” We look.
I’ll give you an example. I was in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, with college students on the day of an eclipse. We were there for the geology, and happenstance gave us an eclipse in that beautiful setting, a valley filled with tall trees beneath towering walls of granite. I told the students to use the holes of their three-ring-binder paper held over the white hood of the van to observe the eclipse. Sunlight through each of those holes revealed the eclipse on the van.
Of course, I said, “Don’t look at the sun; look at the hood of the van. You’ll experience the eclipse without jeopardizing your retinas.” You know without my telling you that they looked upward.
I know that if I say shield your eyes from a light that blinds rather than enlightens, you’ll look because constant exposure has convinced you “that’s where the fun is.”
Now you know what traveling across Death Valley, the Sahara, or the Great Sandy Desert was like for pre-industrial pioneers. Sure, everyone faces the problem of little available water and rapid dehydration, but that almost seems minor beneath the wash of uninterrupted daylight. You just want some shade, just want to close your eyes and not have translucent eyelids keeping you from rest. And here’s what makes it worse: This radiation is 24/7. At least those rainless regions get some night.
We might be able to tolerate the incessant light if, just occasionally, it enlightened. Maybe it seems to for some, but generally, the radiation blinds us. As in all things human, perception is the driver. Enlightenment is inferred. The ostensible enlightenment of news and opinion seems itself to be reminiscent of the lyrics of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s “Blinded by the Light” lyrics.
As in many popular—and even in operatic arias—songs, the rhythm requires syllables and words that fit regardless of their sense. So, also, “Blinded by the Light” contains some nonsense lines whose meaning is only subjectively inferable. However, three lines in the song might reveal why so many are so addicted to the blinding light of the incessant 24/7 cycle:
Mama always told me not to look into
The eyes of the sun
But mama, that’s where the fun is.
We know our response when someone says, “Don’t look.” We look.
I’ll give you an example. I was in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, with college students on the day of an eclipse. We were there for the geology, and happenstance gave us an eclipse in that beautiful setting, a valley filled with tall trees beneath towering walls of granite. I told the students to use the holes of their three-ring-binder paper held over the white hood of the van to observe the eclipse. Sunlight through each of those holes revealed the eclipse on the van.
Of course, I said, “Don’t look at the sun; look at the hood of the van. You’ll experience the eclipse without jeopardizing your retinas.” You know without my telling you that they looked upward.
I know that if I say shield your eyes from a light that blinds rather than enlightens, you’ll look because constant exposure has convinced you “that’s where the fun is.”
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