The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Bits and bytes of the week

A DIFFERENT SIDE TO TRUTHINESS. A few years back Stephen Colbert created the term ‘truthiness’ to explain a trend that indicated that feelings equal truth, that what you believe is as important as what is reality. It was a potshot (and well placed) at those on the right side of the neighborhood that bought into the bullshit slinging from the money lenders and corporate-purchased GOP politicians spewing improbable but possible nonsense (Jewish Space Lasers?).

Following the ridiculous defeat of the Democrats in a sweep of almost every branch of government the term is finding a new home: the Left.

A revealing chart that ran in The Financial Times showed that white progressives hold views far to the left of the minorities they champion. White progressives think at higher rates than Hispanic and Black Americans that “racism is built into our society.” Many more Black and Hispanic Americans surveyed, compared with white progressives, responded that “America is the greatest country in the world.”

The image of a white woman, lecturing American black and brown communities about how they should feel, condescending to the very peoples they desperately want to impress with their social awareness, rebrands the notion of a Karen. Let’s call her Britney. Britney doesn’t call the police on black kids for selling water in her neighborhood, she calls the manager to complain that the waiter wasn’t sufficiently respectful to a transgender woman ordering vegan pasta.

Britney plants a flag in her yard declaring Israel being guilty of genocide but doesn’t really know where Gaza is. Britney cries hard tears when her friend is pregnant with a male because ‘the world doesn’t need another white man.’ She has a copy of Robin DiAngelo’s book next to a thrice-worn #BLM t-shirt she bought at Target in the back of her closet. Britney has a Defund the Police yard sign in her garage that she hid in the back when some kids stole her Kia and had to wait for 45-minutes on hold when she called 911. Britney uses words like ‘systemic’ without any genuine understanding of how systems function and tags her photos of herself playing pickleball with #TheFutureIsFemale.

Karen yells. Britney lectures. Karen can’t spell. Britney scolds people for poor grammar in public. Karen doesn’t grasp the pronoun thing. Britney makes it a daily goal to school as many people about as possible.

Britney has her own brand of truthiness and Harris lost the election because she embraced Britney’s horseshit.

THE GLORIOUS DEVASTATION. I’ve been rethinking my past romantic relationships in light of their failure to sustain. The lessons seem to point to being more cautious, less trusting, putting romance into a box with strict boundaries. I see the younger crowd being guarded and in what has been labeled situationships or friends with benefits. In a reframe, I can say that love—true, unconditional love—isn’t supposed to be contained. The love I feel for my family is MASSIVE. It isn’t designed to be minimized. To even attempt to make it less is to betray the very point.

Yes, I tend to fall in love with the wrong women. That said, the act of falling hopelessly in love, the glorious devastation that it is, isn’t the wrong choice. The cliché that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all is an absolute truth. Read the poetry of the Great Romantics. Love can be a destructive and horrible thing yet is the only thing in human existence worth living for. To live a life only allowing for small, shallow love isn’t a life at all. To carefully curate love is to deny the vast sloppiness of humanity itself.

It is safer. Safety, however, is not a reason to keep churning on, grinding away, being the machine that propels an economy, paying bills to keep the lights on, paying for stuff that we like but probably don’t need, finding crumbs of joy in comfort. The greatest leaps into the evolution of humanity come from a driving passion—a love for an idea, a philosophy, a creation, art, or another person.

None of this is to indicate that I’m caught up in the throes of mind-numbing passion for anyone or anything right now. Arguably, it may be too soon. It is to say that I won’t be curbed if it shows up.

When it comes to romance, I think Mary Oliver says it best:

Don’t Hesitate

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

A PORTRAIT ON WABASH. Walking in downtown Chicago from the parking garage to my place of work, I encounter at least half a dozen folks looking to get cash out of me as I pass by. It’s an American phenom, the homeless and grifters mixing up together so one can’t tell those in genuine need from those who have made grifting an occupation. At some point, no matter how much one believes in helping people in need, the callouses on the soul build up and the knee jerk response is a vigorous shake of the head, a look in the other direction, and quickening of the steps to move away from the request.

Cut to the other day. Same walk. Same circumstance.

“Excuse? Could I take your picture for a class?”

She had a real camera. She was standing near an L stop. I immediately shook my head and walked a bit faster. And then I stopped.

“You wanna take my picture? For a class?”

“Yeah. Yes! I’m taking a photography class at Columbia and I’m supposed to get portraits of people downtown. No one will let me. I’ve been here for two hours.”

“Sure. You can take my picture. Where should I stand?”

She took the shot and did not ask me for money. No sob story about her kid sitting in a car out of gas three blocks away or if only she could scrape up three dollars she could get a transit pass to go home to Indiana. No grift, no grip. Just a picture.

I train my staff to be helpful to everyone they can but the reality is that with so many trying to pull scams in real time every day, that impulse gets stunted like a missing leg you can feel but can’t walk on.

She and I spoke for about five minutes about this absurdity in modern city life. She thanked me and I went to work. The moment, however, sticks in my throat like Thanksgiving turkey that won’t quite go down.

LANGUAGE CREATES CULTURE. One of my many DADA lessons involved saying the word CAKE. You say it out loud and you instantly get an image in your mind of, well, cake. Whatever you associate the word with, that’s the image you see. Now, say the word CAKE out loud one thousand times. At some point the image is lost and the sound becomes just that. A sound. Once you’ve managed to strip the personal and agreed upon use of that sound, it becomes fodder for the cannon of art. All words are merely sounds we’ve collectively agreed mean something. That agreement is the glue of the social contract.

These sounds aren’t just words. They’re the code that builds societies, the software that runs in our brains, shaping the way we think, act, and interact. Look around: every culture on this planet, every group from the Manhattan stockbroker to the Amazonian tribe, has been molded by language in profound ways. Language and culture aren’t just cousins—they’re practically conjoined twins.

Think about the words you use daily: democracy, freedom, hustle, grind, woke. They’re not just sounds—each one carries a whole world of cultural baggage much more complicated than cake. When we use language, we’re filtering reality. Language doesn’t just tell us what things are; it shapes what things mean to us. If you’re in a culture that prizes individualism, you have a word for it, and you reinforce it in phrases like “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” By contrast, in more collective societies, there’s often language emphasizing “the group” and “community.” Japanese, for example, has a rich vocabulary for cooperation and harmony, with words like “wa” (harmony) and “oyakōkō” (filial piety), which say it all.

And it goes both ways. Americans, for example, don’t just love individualism; we have a dictionary for it. In fact, it’s this tight bond between language and value that makes it so easy to recognize a culture just by its vocabulary. Our words reflect what we value, what we fear, and what we expect from one another. Try discussing self-care with someone from rural China. Their language might not even have a phrase that conveys what it really means. Does that make Americans more enlightened, or does it just make them more… self-absorbed? Maybe a little of both.

Take a look at “money” and its 47 synonyms in English. We’ve got “bucks,” “dough,” “moolah,” and for what? Money is so embedded in American culture that we’ve run out of synonyms. “Success” is another, and it’s not a coincidence. Because our language is so wealth-driven, our culture reflects that obsession. It’s everywhere, from TED Talks to Instagram gurus telling you how to “10x your income.” Language creates a feedback loop; the more we talk about wealth and success, the more it defines us as a people, and the more our words around it expand.

Contrast that with other cultures. In some Indigenous languages, there’s no word for “possession” as we know it. It’s not that they don’t value things—they just don’t view ownership in the same way. Language here creates a radically different mindset about material wealth and individual success. So when we look at how language shapes perspectives, it’s not just poetic or political; it’s structural.

Here’s the real kicker: language isn’t neutral. Language is political. Ever notice how certain terms have a loaded meaning, depending on who’s saying them? Take “freedom.” That one word has launched revolutions and started wars. And if you’re in the U.S., that word might mean personal rights, gun ownership, or free speech—whatever suits the agenda of whoever’s shouting it.

When I say “love” I have a specific meaning in mind. My third ex-wife said it, too but she meant something very different than when I said it. When I say

Language has always been a tool of power, too, because the way we use words can marginalize or empower entire groups. Just think about gender pronouns or terms for racial identities. Decades ago, these words were set in stone, the products of a rigid society that didn’t want change. Now, language is evolving, and so is our culture. What was once taboo or unspoken is now part of our vocabulary, shifting the cultural landscape along with it. Language drives social change and redefines what’s possible in society.

Humor is like a cultural fingerprint, and it’s no accident that every culture has its own take on what’s funny. In the U.S., sarcasm and irony reign supreme—think about shows like “Saturday Night Live” or comedians like Dave Chappelle, George Carlin, or Bill Hicks. These aren’t just funny people; they’re cultural critics who use language to probe the absurdities of society. In places where free speech isn’t as protected, like China, humor is subtler. It’s embedded in wordplay and innuendo because language itself has to dance around censorship. If that’s not a lesson on how language shapes culture, I don’t know what is.

So yes, language isn’t just a tool for communication; it’s the keeper of norms, the enforcer of values, the definer of in-groups and out-groups. Through humor, language allows cultures to vent, to critique, to heal.

Language is fluid, ever-changing, and as it morphs, so does culture. Think of it as a two-way street where language and culture constantly push and pull on each other. When new words come into existence, like “ghosting” or “woke,” they reflect shifts in society. When society changes, language follows suit.

And maybe that’s the best takeaway here. Language doesn’t just describe culture; it’s the architect. Whether it’s a phrase, a meme, or even a joke, each little piece of language builds a larger cultural structure. It reinforces who we are and shapes who we become. So, if you want to understand a culture, don’t just look at what people say. Look at how they say it, and why.

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Been a busy week! Just getting busier so take care of yourselves, hydrate, chill out some, and give your loved ones a giant bear hug!