In the middle of Joanna Penn’s podcast interview with Toby Neal last week, there came a thought I had to jot down while careening down the highway at 72 mph (I find police tend to give traffic a pass at 7 mph over the posted limit or less).
With regard to social media, Neal said something to the effect of, “Find the helpful and the positive; walk away from the toxic.” Is there wiser advice anywhere, and not about just social media?
The world is bustling with toxic — you can swing a dead cat without hitting toxic. Come to think of it, the image of swinging a dead cat is somewhat toxic.
But the world is also bustling with positive and helpful. Heck, you can go on YouTube and find videos about how to boil an egg, that’s how much helpful there is out there. People are always willing to share their knowledge, come to the aid, smile on one another and live in peace.
Why, in a world brimming with good will, would you wallow in the toxic? Find the helpful and the positive, and walk away from the toxic. Do it consciously and intentionally, every day, and watch it all turn around.
“I’m not trying to promote my scary new movie about a space monster.”
“Doesn’t matter; it’s copyrighted.”
“Piffle.”
“You’ll think differently when you hear from their lawyers.”
“Oh, come on. It’s just a fact: There’s no air in space, so there’s nothing to carry sound, so if you managed to live long enough to scream, no one could hear you.”
“Well you can say it that way, but the way you said it first is protected by copyright.”
“I wasn’t saying it to sell anything. The copyright is for a movie tagline. If anything, when I say it, people will think, ‘I remember that movie, it was good. I should see it again.’ It’s free advertising for them.”
“I don’t know. I’m still worried you could get sued.”
“You know, of all the things I’ve learned over the years, one of the truest is that most things I worry about never happen anyway.”
“Oh my gaw. You are crazy. Do you want to have lawyers all over you?”
“What?!”
“That’s a Tom Petty song!”
“What is?”
“‘Most things I worry about never happen anyway’! It’s in a song!”
“So what?”
“So you can’t say that! It violates the copyright!”
“That’s so stupid. But I guess what a fool believes, he sees.”
Two score and eight years ago, it was hot and sunny, especially for people wearing black gowns and caps, and U.S. Sen. Bill Proxmire, D-Wisconsin, got an honorary degree, irritating my dad the staunch Republican.
I spent that night and a few nights later in an ancient hotel in Waupaca whose name escapes me — or was it called the Waupaca Hotel? — before securing a home above Hansen TV while I worked my first grownup job.
When I walked into WDUX on the morning of May 19, 1975, the energetic morning man with the radio voice greeted me cordially and invited me to have some coffee. I had made it through four years of college and untold all-nighters without drinking coffee, but that morning I was willing to give it a try. And thus began a 48-year (so far) addiction. Caffeine is an insidious and wonderful slave master.
The first professional favor I ever received was from the friend who took me aside and showed me the word Weyauwega, the name of the next town over from Waupaca. Knowing I would encounter it very early in my news-reading career, he pointed and enunciated, “Why-uh-WEE-guh” (hard G). I am forever in his debt. I would have been stymied.
Every year around the anniversary of that turning-point day, I sit and reflect in what has been and what is yet to be. I was an arrogant young man who thought he knew more than he did, and now I’m an arrogant but more humble old man who thinks he knows more than he does, but at least, I think, I am a kinder, gentler soul than I was when I knew it all.
I spent 22 years in radio, processing sound, which is why I am still irritated when PA systems and TV/radio/podcast audio is sloppily produced or neglected. As recently as yesterday, I have been known to mutter, “Use the mike,” disgusted, under my breath, as someone across a large room talks with the microphone down by the belly instead of near his/her lips.
The rest of my time has been spent in newspapers — most all 48 years reporting the news in one format or another. I am not a legend in my chosen field, nor did I make a fortune, but I made enough to build a house with my sweet partner and companion, I won some awards, and I was the editor when the Door County Advocate won Newspaper of the Year in 2004 and Best in Division in 2014. I guess I’ve done OK.
I started taking God seriously on Easter morning 1982, when I took that familiar invitation seriously and prayed the prayer, although I remember a couple of times much earlier when I encountered a sacred moment. Jesus and I have always had an informal friendship, largely because I’ve often been called upon to work the Sunday morning shift, so regular church-going has not been my thing, but I’m certain He is around and caring — and every so often when I have my doubts, He surprises me by making Himself known.
