Table Talk: Back to Basics
When the world is too much with us, we make soup
These days, I am often overwhelmed. Many people I know feel the same way. None of us can end the housing crisis or the mental health epidemic, or ease international tensions, or lower the cost of living, or make public debate more civil, or get politicians to behave even slightly more reasonably. When it comes to the big issues of our age, we are largely powerless. Being bombarded with problems we are unable to solve, all day, every day — in maddening detail — leaves us, as the famed Wordsworth poem The World is Too Much With Us has it, “out of tune.” We become blind to the beauty in our daily lives.
I was reminded of that this past week, listening to a wonderful Dishcast podcast conversation between the writer Andrew Sullivan and the Harvard professor Arthur Brooks. Sullivan — who’s probably best known for his role in the gay marriage movement — raised the issue of how turbulent our times are now. He saw a lot of people struggling with the state of the world, depressed and angry and frustrated. They didn’t know what to do, he said, whether it was channelling angst into protest marches or trolling on the Internet.
“In fact,” Sullivan said, “you just have to take a deep breath and tell yourself, ‘I am not going to change all of this. I can’t. It’s not in my power. What I can do is make sure I am not becoming a maniac — that I am not losing perspective. That I can still love my friends and family, and do things I enjoy, and create things that are worth something.’”
We can’t control the outside world, he stressed, but we can control our response to it. This simple idea can lift us out of paralysis and into practical action.
The big question, of course, is how. How do we put this idea into practice? How do we regain emotional equilibrium in the midst of such chaos? Sullivan invited Brooks, who’s studied happiness extensively, to offer advice to those who find themselves unable to escape the doom loop.
What Brooks had to say was edifying.
