It had been awhile since I started the day by watching Muppet Babies and The Jetsons. But quarantining reminded me what it is like to truly relax for a little while and let my mind wander. While, at first, this led to surprising realizations about questions I had not even known were important to me (when else would one wake up in the middle of the night to declare, revelatorily, it isn’t right I don’t have any cowboy boots!), the process quickly led to more purposeful applications of attention and effort, as well as more of an opportunity to find my own way without pressure from others.

On Direction

One thing I have noted fruitful endeavors seem to have in common is an applied willingness to work in a particular direction – once a right one is finally identified – for as long as needed.

When I was little, and for many years, my dreams centered largely around the sport of gymnastics, which I practiced aggressively. But, as I grew tall and began to realize I would probably need to direct my efforts elsewhere, I learned many of the qualities I’d honed could easily be repurposed and that my love for sprinting in particular was actually portable, taking me outdoors more often and, in turn, allowing me to learn about the challenges and joys of distance running.

At one point during quarantine, I was grateful to see a (somewhat) similar process unfold after a much-loved family cat who had always been afraid of going outside began to battle devastating illness. Almost as if she knew that now was no time for procrastination, particularly given all of the love and special, well-deserved attention she received as she persisted in expressing her bright, affectionate, and almost comically relaxed individuality, she evolved almost overnight a love for daily outdoor adventures, especially when I would sit or walk with her. I believe this may have, at least in a way, been one of the most joyous and inspiring periods in this beautiful girl’s life.

On Velocity

While I realize it may seem a very different thing to choose a direction out of a sense of total freedom than it is to do so based on a newly discovered or introduced constraint, I believe that to make good choices – choices that are both informed and inspired – one requires both the presence of needed basic information and the absence of unhelpful pressure. And, to link back to the blog theme of journalism business models, I believe this pair of requirements may help explain how it is that our journalism infrastructure’s design could be improved.

On Distance

While it seems I am practically the only one, I still wonder whether too many media organization heads are attempting, today, to install themselves almost like pseudo-kings who would gain power not by adding value to the world but by withholding a basic need for all democracies: journalism. But that’s not how democracy works.

It still seems to me that it is possible one reason media companies went to such extraordinary lengths to so intensively promote our most recent former president’s campaign in the lead-up to his election was to make money. So, what, I’ve wondered since, makes so many people seem loathe to imagine these organizations continue to be motivated by this same force, still built into their operations by virtue of an unchanged business model?

As we run laps around such timely notions, it is worth asking: who or what is actually covering the most ground in our public affairs today? Is it the public’s general progress or is it media companies’ bottom line? In the marathon that is our pursuit of a more perfect union, perhaps what matters most is how far we’ve sustainably traveled in a particular direction – not necessarily how fast we seem to have been moving, or oscillating back and forth – as the vendors of fuels like acrimony and addictive rage keep producing these commodities in bulk and advertising them as necessities.

Wouldn’t it be better to be still – at least for a time and even if it feels like a waste of time – to determine what may be throwing us off course before charging ahead in opposite directions? As citizens of a democracy, our time and attention – and our ability to collaborate – are enormously valuable. And I believe it’s essential that these resources not be allowed to be siphoned by media corporations.

As a person experienced producing news, I continue to believe that so long as what remains a three-dimensional debate between democrats, republicans, and a stock market-turbocharged media sector continues to be crammed into two dimensional dialogues by the third – and almost always unnamed – player, the kind of confusion and scapegoating that has proliferated in recent years – and that no one really has time for – will continue to seem to result.

On Directness

As I’ve begun working out outdoors more often, I’ve been enjoying the opportunities it’s afforded to listen to inspiring music, the simple sounds of nature, or, more recently, uplifting talks and lectures. And I’ve noticed how much more unwelcome intrusive advertisements and suggested playlist additions have felt. (How did Meatloaf’s I Would Do Anything for Love But I Won’t Do That, a song unrelated to practically any genre I’ve ever listened to voluntarily, end up being selected for me? Also, why not just say I Would Do Many Things for Love?) But it’s been particularly heartening pondering the idea of focusing on the beauty of timelessness in refining my goals.

I’ve learned as a runner that I don’t always begin to fully enjoy the sport until about three or four miles in – at least. And so it is with any sort of regular practice, for me. There are times when it seems only after a long period of focus that I begin to truly feel inspired, productive, and able to listen to my heart – driving home an obvious, ironic point: you don’t rise above time constraints (especially when they stand between yourself and your finally-identified goal) by devaluing them but, rather, by refusing to waste even a single moment.