It's Complicated

Funny how that became a tag line for tricky relationships.

They even made a movie about more tricky relationships than should exist in real life (though they do).

In today's case, however, I would say that all kinds of things can turn unexpectedly complicated.

I created a blog about making decisions when I had a challenging decision to make and that task prompted me to think about making decisions in general. What we choose, how we choose, the way choices impact every minute of every day.

But you kinda figure that once you've made your decision - whether it's for the chocolate ice cream or the summer in France or what to do with the rest of your life - you can tootle on your merry way, carrying it out (tasting the cold, stumbling through French, and all the little pieces that come together to make the rest of your life).

Ever hear of a red herring? A red herring might throw a dog off his scent. I'm thinking that sometimes, the decision that you made...that you finalized...that you closed in your brain and proceeded to begin carrying out...that too can be a red herring. Because you THINK you know where you're going. And then your path veers or new traffic startles you, and then you have to revisit what you knew you'd known.

It's complicated.

It's particularly complicated because re-deciding choices you've already chosen just feels wrong. Why exert all that excellent agonizing effort if the measures you take send you back to the beginning, regardless.

It's particularly complicated if you swerve because of new encounter. New information, new opportunities, new distractions. That which had been clean and clear in your hands no longer is. Well, you can always ignore new information, new opportunities, new distractions. But can you really? Is it the better part of wisdom to stick with your plan just because you've made it?

Maybe it's more complicated than it should be, but that doesn't make the complications dissolve into thin air.

Going back to the drawing board isn't the same as beginning again. You've come this far, and relinquishing your choices isn't easily done. Not if you've chosen carefully, anyway.

Now what?

When Dreams Are Life

In Deborah Hautzig's Second Star to the Right, she tells the tale of a daughter who follows her mother to the left - to death - in Auschwitz. The book really focuses on the next generation, in New York, and anorexic Leslie Hiller's struggle with the implications for living wholly. In the end, she chooses life: "second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning." The book was first published in 1981, and I read it then for the first of many, many times...but it is only today that I take note of the allusion to Peter Pan. Disney does a good job of paying attention, though:

Note that the song talks about dreams coming true. For the anorexic choosing health means recognizing that she has dreams to live for. Something to keep her going.

This season - the ten days from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur - are about choosing life. The traditional holiday wish - כתיבה וחתימה טובה - is a prayer that we be "written and inscribed for good." In human terms, "good" means life - rather, that, by the end of Yom Kippur, we should be sealed in the Book of Life for the coming year.

Rabbi Zalman Levine, M.D., in his article, "On Fertility and Faith" (look for the article here), writes that the world approaches the Day of Judgement that is Rosh Hashanah with a need to reflect on our relationship with God on three planes: the biological (that's plain old simple physical existence - that is neither all that plain nor old nor simple); the metaphysical (let's say that's the essential individual way we connect to God - via soul or spirituality, or however you like to articulate it); and the communal (no Jew is an island, and the even as individuals, we approach God with the connection as a member of the Jewish People). Rabbi Levine considers these aspects of relationship in the context of those who are infertile, and understands the day all the better because of its connection to the prayer of the biblical Chana, perhaps the most articulate barren woman in the Bible. But in extrapolating from her to everyone, let's consider that she had a dream that she wouldn't relinquish. She could envision the future - and she wanted to bring her dream to pass.

When we do teshuvah and repent in this season of judgement and forgiveness, we choose life. We inherently dream, as we recognize our potential to be better people. We envision the future - and want to bring the better to pass. Not for nothing is the Torah called תורת חיים - a Living Torah. Or alternatively, a Torah of Life. Our personal reforms deepen our relationship with God on all the planes....and our re-dedication to living a life of Torah is an affirmation of our dreams...as we seek the future.

Quick: Online or Hard Copy?

Let's assume you read your newspaper with the text "upright."

Are you riding the subway and have folded the paper in that professional, magical way that reveals a couple of columns at a time? Or are you surfing for news during downtime at work - vertical on your computer screen?  Or are you partial to headlines on your smartphone, peering to catch the tidbits, and no more?

What dictates your choice?

A virtual newspaper lacks the satisfying rustle of that same newsprint. And for all that so many of us read our news upright these days, there's something comforting about lying on your stomach, with the paper held barely in front you, as you scan for the scores or the stocks or the weather. Then, reading the paper generates its own form of relaxation. Even reading on the train, the time is set aside for checking out the news.

The obvious (to me) advantages of reading online include avoiding the grime of newsprint. For some, reading online means more time in front of a screen. For others, it means making use of every minute in front of that screen, multitasking your news intake while awaiting results, for example. And for others, environmental concerns trump any pleasure of holding a disposable newspaper in their hands

One might argue that reading online is a different enterprise than reading hard copy - at least, if the reader is past a certain age (I'm not sure what that age is), as the New York Times noted in 2008: youngsters think reading online counts as reading, while those who began their reading careers with ink and paper have their doubts.

See here:  http://sdheadliner.com/science/study-office-workers-waste-too-much-time-reading-online-news-articles/
A study reveals that people spend a lot of their computer time reading news online. Shocker!

Me, I get my news online these days. It's to my advantage in terms of my available minutes and my available pennies. I find the Internet to be an efficient means of reading the news - and yes, I would call it reading. But my goal, in front of the screen, is fairly directed knowledge acquisition. Engaging my curiosity. Keeping up with the world's goings-on. When my purpose is the process of reading...well, then, I want a book in my hands (or newspaper or magazine, it matters little). The eye - my eyes, anyway - relate to the ink on the page differently, and it can be restorative. Especially after many hours in front of a screen.

How do you read the news these days?

(Yes, yes, I know all about the radio and the television...thanks.)