Do you have a short attention span? (This might be for you.)

Recently I had a once-in-a-blue-moon reader approach me with a dour expression. “How are you?” I asked. “Terrible.” “Why’s that?” “I read your blog.” “Oh?” “Yeah, I read three or four of them. Much ado about nothing. Too long.” (Something like: “Space Mountain makes me sick. I should know. I rode it three or four times!”) With a friend like this, I need a critic!!

I do have to ask myself about my purpose and approach in blogging. As addressed with the ending quote of last entry, it’s not intended like the introduction to that Series of Unfortunate Events movie. It’s also not for purposes described satirically: “What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn’t elevate a cow. I can not conscientiously recommend it for any useful purpose whatever” (Jerome K. Jerome, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow [New York: Hurst & Company, Publishers, 1885?], 7). There is much in the gospel citing a need for that which edifies, so I at least attempt to mull over those things of which the Prophet Joseph Smith spoke:

The great plan of salvation is a theme which ought to occupy our strict attention, and be regarded as one of heaven’s best gifts to mankind. . . .

A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge, for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power in the other world, as evil spirits will have more knowledge, and consequently more power than many men who are on the earth. Hence it needs revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge of the things of God. . . .

The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity—thou must commune with God. How much more dignified and noble are the thoughts of God, than the vain imaginations of the human heart! (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 208, 266-267)

In short, though, I ought to explain my difficulty in keeping things short. I recollect a somewhat vulgar allusion from my school days that encouraged focused writing in essays (focused meaning brief but not overly so). That’s not a difficult thing if you’re not excited about the subject matter or if you really have nothing to say anyway. I suspect that if I wanted to pare this down to carefully-crafted little packets of dynamo, I’d seldom find the time to do it. No, I just want to write. Perhaps it’s cathartic, or expressive in ways I don’t have from day to day. And I don’t want to be pedantic about it. Ruskin once expressed an interesting view that, hopefully, doesn’t ignore the needs of administering to the individual:

You may trust to the truth of my sympathy; but you must remember that I am engaged in the investigation of enormous religious and moral questions, in the history of nations; and that your feelings, or my own, or anybody else’s, at any particular moment, are of very little interest to me,—not from want of sympathy, but from the small proportion the individuality bears to the whole subject of my enquiry. (John Ruskin, 31 Oct 1867, in John Ruskin's Letters to William Ward [Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1922], 95; see D&C 88:77-80)

It’s also not like I want to say a bare minimum and then let a firestorm of comments define the discussion. I can accept fair criticism, however, having in mind such folly as this: “The Seattle television station where I work put up a suggestion box so employees could offer comments about the work environment. The carpenter shop built a beautiful wooden box with brass hardware and placed it in our lunchroom. The next day I noticed a note taped on it suggesting: ‘Please cut a slot in the top so we can use the box’” (Charles W. Lindenberg, Reader’s Digest, Jul. 1998, 37). That’s why I’m biting my tongue off to terminate this entry very shortly.

Basically I don’t know exactly why I blog, but while I blog, no halfhearted measures for me!

And since I can’t leave well enough alone, here’s the message I wish to convey for the day. Part of our fading civility seems to be shortening attention spans.

It is not what we eat, but what we digest, that makes us strong. It is not what we hear that makes us learned, that fills us with knowledge, which is power; it is what we remember and profit by and make a wise use of. Attention is the mother of memory. (Orson F. Whitney, CR, Oct. 1919, 68)

President Hinckley often urged upon us the notion of more frequent meditation, which can invite peace and revelation. During one such sermon, he made these humorous remarks:

President McKay, I remember, said to us once, in speaking to the Council of the Twelve when I was in that circle, “Brethren, we need to meditate more.” Those were his words. We need to take time to meditate. It’s so hard. we have been cruising the highways in this part of the world. . . . And I’ve had one impression—the whole world’s going mad. Traffic! Everywhere you go! People! I hope they all know where they are going, because they are paying a lot for gasoline. But we don’t meditate. We don’t take time to think. We passed a sign somewhere on one of these roads . . . but we passed a sign on one of these roads that said Walden’s Pond, with an arrow. And I thought, “Poor old Henry Thoreau would go crazy if he saw what was happening on the highways around his pond.” The speed at which we live. Slow down, at least for an hour or two, and think of Bill Jones or whatever your name is. How am I? How am I? What am I doing to qualify for the responsibility that has been given me? Think of it, brethren, and if you’re by yourself and it’s quiet, get on your knees, and talk with the Lord about it, and ask Him to help you, because you need it. We all need it. (DPGBH, 1:269)

Thoreau happened to say, “Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” In my opinion, that means setting aside the time to read them properly, which might require pauses of silence to reflect. What sort of commentary is it on society when our appetites demand only the packaged and trite? When something must be written in newspaper format—that is, the most important news up front in the first 50 words or so, and the remainder hacked away mercilessly to fit the copy size—or else we will pass it by?

Concerning matters of faith affecting Latter-day Saints:

In the course of my experience I believe I have seen people in the world so surrounded by the traditions of their fathers, and so bound up by their creeds, that they could not see the light; but they were living more consistently, according to the knowledge that they possessed and the circumstances that surrounded them, than hundreds of the Latter-day Saints who have been born again of the water and of the Spirit and who ought to be, of all men and women in the world, the most faithful, the most exemplary, the most virtuous; yet they are indifferent to a great many things that they should pay strict attention to and that are really necessary to make them what they ought to be. (Joseph F. Smith, CD, 3:108)

Balanced, naturally, for these blog purposes (and conceding my personal, subjective authorship):

As we contemplate the full meaning of the phrase “Come, follow me,” it is apparent that we may have much to learn and much to do before we can fully respond to that injunction. It is of interest, however, that during the first 30 years of His life in Nazareth, Jesus apparently drew little attention to Himself even though He was living a sinless life (see Matthew 13:54-56; Mark 6:2-3). That should encourage us to do better in our own quiet and humble way without drawing attention to ourselves. (William W. Parmley, Ensign, Nov. 2003, 94)

In that sense, pay no attention to me.