When I saw recently that a news anchor for whom I used to work but who has seemed distressingly proximate to attempts to silence my contributions over the past several years had launched his own podcast, I noticed that – whereas I would normally feel terribly uncomfortable and even afraid – the opportunity I had to simply turn to God for guidance instead felt much more natural; and, when I felt in my heart I should not worry, I didn’t.

On Placement

Often, lately, when feeling a negative emotion of one kind or another I’ve felt right about pausing to try to determine whether I am really looking at a problem that is needlessly going unsolved by those responsible for addressing it or whether there may be another answer that is simply not yet visible and that I need to be willing to, if required intuitively, step up and help surface.

At times, such a wondering can be energizing as it feels like a realization I may not be fumbling through an elementary-level problem I should have resolved by now but that I could be discovering I am, rather, in some sort of an AP course. (Maybe I am not, of realize; but it is at least a comforting possibility to consider.)

On X Rays

While I could be wrong, it seems to me that thousands of people have been killed in recent months due at least partly to the delay of a national reckoning over the relationship of our media and stock market sectors and the largely unchecked influence of a ratings-based communications infrastructure on foreign affairs.

But in recent years I’ve wondered whether, if the playbook of all the world’s more corrupt celebrities and organizations is to obscure the intellectual contributions of the silenced or insecure, causing deadly power imbalances, would not simple confidence be the answer? And, if not, assuming it is true that the iron curtain between American democracy and its citizenry is media companies’ prevailing business model, what, I’ve long wondered, is capable of breaking through?

Personal accounts? It does not seem so. Over the past year or so, I’ve incidentally noted a steady, but slowing stream of pings online seeming to indicate what at least appears to be some level of interest in my work from Global Broadcast Media, ITV, BBC Studios, Viacom, Immediate Media Co., Penguin Random House UK, The Guardian, the Producers Guild of America, Prime Video & Amazon Studios, Meredith Corporation, CNN, Thomson Reuters, “Lead Stories” (although I’m not sure this one counts as I believe it may be a Larry King Live legacy organization), Fortune, Yahoo, Universal Television, Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, Google, Dow Jones, PBS, WBUR, Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Entertainment, AMC Networks, NBCUniversal, The Boston Globe, Bloomberg Government, Condé Nast, The New Yorker, Paramount Television Studios, and Sony Pictures Entertainment; but I do not know whether any would be willing now to discuss possible solutions to corporate media business models as I would be happy to do so impersonally and anonymously.

Art? While the marketing of visual, auditory, and other traditional multimedia projects, obviously, goes on, it at least seems the litmus test to which they are subject is, increasingly, their shock value and profitability to brands. While I do not believe this can go on (there is, after all, only so naked famous people’s strip teases can get, and there are only so many stunning curse words that, at least in theory, each can possibly squeeze into a day), I still am not sure these kinds of artifacts will always be the only possible way for solutions to be communicated; and their devolution is not necessarily a tragedy.

On Light Switches

As I have written often over the past several years, I still believe it may be the practice itself of making art, engaging in sport, dancing – following one’s own heart in the process of self-expression, in other words – rather than allowing oneself to be externally impressed all of the time, regardless of whether one actually shares the work produced, that may be one helpful step toward a world more in tune with its intuition. Of course, many people find that basking in the light in more of a stillness and quiet can be just as, if not more, helpful to them.

Either way, as people turn to their own inward light, and do what feels right to them, rather than only what corporations pressure them to do, think, watch or listen to, I wonder whether a transformation towards more productive and less opaque means of communication may become easier.