The Pundit Impulse and the Power of Revision

Bringing humanity back to our published words

Photo by James Sutton

I wish there were an ‘autoresponder’ option on Facebook like you would set on your email were you to go on vacation or leave. But there isn’t. So, I had to post this the other day…

Facebook Auto-Responder: Hey all. Happy belated New Year. Just a heads up that I’m gonna try to stay away from this website as much as possible for the next year and see how it goes. If you need/want to get in touch, FB Messenger is a good way. Also, I’ll be somewhat active on Instagram and my bloggy wog. Peace.

I’ve been noticing something over the last number of years, particularly since more and more of us have moved our lives onto social media and our news outlets have transitioned to online/mobile…

Since we’re all a split-second away from that big p-u-b-l-i-s-h button, we’ve all suddenly turned into pundits.

I don’t know about you, but I can only take so much punditry in my life. The talking heads on the news are one thing. But when everyone in my life including my uncles, cousins, friends, old high school people who I stopped listening to 20 years ago and never really liked in the first place, and complete strangers who are somehow “friends” on Facebook — when all thousand-ish of them turn into pundits, it’s just too much…

And looking in the mirror, the pundit’s life is a heavy burden — one I never willingly signed up for but have found myself caught up in as with the rest of us.

I fell prey to this pundit impulse just the other day when I caught the first wind of the insurrection in Washington DC. Before knowing any details beyond the headline or two that I saw in my news feed, I became enraged and wrote a blog about it.

Yes, it was honest.
But it lacked…
Empathy.

I recently ran across this quote…

“There’s something wonderful about the spontaneity of social media, but I think at this point it’s becoming 100% toxic for people to be firing off the top of their brains. One of the things this book says is that the deeper parts of our brain…