America’s High Fidelity Era
We’ve gone full on Rob Gordon
What came first, the music or the misery? - Rob Gordon, High Fidelity
One of the greatest opening lines to a movie.
I have an affinity for Cusack’s Rob Gordon character. Not only because I too was prone to over mythologizing the heartbreaks from my youth, but because I too love to rank my life experiences by songs (and movies).
Rob’s “Top Five” style was my goto for many posts in my early days writing at MTV. Most of them are gone to time (ie Viacom/Paramount letting the sites go dark), but here are a couple I was able to track down on the ol’ time machine.
Top 5 Saturday Night Live Movie Stars
Rob, his opening line, and his Top Fives popped in my head a few times this week, and it appears we may be in our Rob Gordon Era as Americans.
Are American progressives making themselves sad?
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/04/04/are-american-progressives-making-themselves-sad
Who knew there was a global happiness survey. I have never been asked to participate in it since its 2012 inception, but apparently the United States has dropped out of the Top 20 Happiest places!
I’m still not sure how I feel about the article. It’s not even the sweeping generalizations about liberals, conservatives, or mental health that I couldn’t get past. It’s that the title’s rhetorical question gets answered, but not in a way where I feel swayed one way or the other. I can’t even tell what the writer actually thinks.
But it was the first time John Cusack entered my mind this week, and now all I want is for him to break down the Top Five Happiest Nations’ National Anthems now.
The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust
The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust - The Atlantic
"More Americans today have “converted” out of religion than have converted to all forms of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam combined. No faith’s evangelism has been as successful in this century as religious skepticism."
I can’t say I’m surprised by that quote. For a good period of my life I too avoided churches. As I got older and had a family I made my way back into the pews, but I would say that’s less common among many of my friends and peers.
Derek Thompson further details how Americans feel less civically engaged. “This year, the Pew Research Center reported that religiously unaffiliated Americans are less likely to volunteer, less likely to feel satisfied with their community and social life, and more likely to say they feel lonely.”
So keeping with our High Fidelity Rob Gordon metaphor, is America going through a “what does it all mean” phase now?
To be fair, in this metaphor where the U.S. is Cusack’s character Rob, I’m not sure who his ex, Charlie, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones is.
England? The American Dream? Former Democratic and now Republican NJ Representative Jeff Van Drew?
I only wrote for MTV, not the Atlantic, so I don’t have these answers yet!
The article takes an interesting turn I wasn’t expecting though. Thompson’s analogy of the in-person, synchronous, and collective of a church vs. the solitary, shallow, and asynchronous of digital technology.
He’s an agnostic and assures his readers he isn’t looking to get anyone back in a house of worship though.
“Finding meaning in the world is hard; it’s especially difficult if the oldest systems of meaning-making hold less and less appeal. It took decades for Americans to lose religion. It might take decades to understand the entirety of what we lost.”
The Case for Less Technology & More Boredom
Just like Barry Jive and The Uptown Five were the answer Rob didn’t know he needed, what if Manosh Zamori’s recommendation in the latest podcast episode of FAREWELL is the solve needed for loneliness, sadness, dissatisfaction, and all our mental, physical and social ailments.
Boredom.
That’s what we need more of. Pure, unadulterated, unplugged, uncomfortable and intrusive thoughts. Boredom.
In addition to brilliantly and hilariously comparing the birth of her baby and the release of the iPhone three weeks later as her life shifting moments, she gives perspective, good story, and science behind her case for less technology.
I was unfamiliar with Zamori prior to the interview but I’m pretty sure I’ll check out her books.
And she’s right. Mind wandering is easier than meditation.