Macro/Micro

I was talking to an old friend recently about a certain international event that has got everybody all lathered up of late. He mentioned that he had been talking the matter over with his wife for several days, and she brought up the point that this particular incident had potentially dramatic consequences, not just for Pakistan, but for Israel. My friend then asked me for my opinion on the subject. I was quiet for a little while, and I answered,

"Possibly. We'll have to see."

Profound, I know.

The fact of the matter is this: I live in America. I don't live in Pakistan, and I don't live in Israel. My father is from Israel, but we don't live there, and my family doesn't live there. In my world, small as it is, I care about what and whom I emotionally connect with. There are people of Irish descent in this country who've never set foot in Ireland, but belong to organizations (they'd probably spell it "organisations") like "Celtic Connection" (they'd probably spell it "Connexion") and, whenever something happens in Ireland, their ears perk up.

When shit goes down in the Middle East, I am relatively unfazed. Sorry. I just can't help it.

International news in general interests me, of course. Like a good Jewish Volvo driver, I read the NYT online edition every day. And by "read" I mean "scan the headlines of for stories that might potentially interest me." However, I am not someone who gets his rocks particularly off over espousing my views on what's going on in Tibet or the Congo. Do I have views on these subjects?

Sometimes. Not always.

Oftentimes, I feel far too ill-informed to formulate a view or opinion, and I would feel silly discussing something about which I am not grossly informed and/or semi-ambivalent about.

Why would I bother? To sound smart? I kind of think I'm smart already. To hear myself talk? Meh-- kind of nasal.

I guess sometimes I'm just too damned practical-- too fucking micro-- to engage in heated discussions about international affairs. I wish I was the sort of person who enjoyed getting all animated jawing about Egypt or Syria, but I'm just not. The people in these countries are going to do what they do whether or not I offer my view around the chart-room table. I'm not going to impress anybody, or move anybody, or gain anything out of chewing the fat about the value of the euro on a Thursday afternoon. I'd much rather talk about issues surrounding my job, or the challenges we face in every day life.

For me, the smaller the issue, the better. It's something I can conceptualize, something which with I can wrestle and, not only that, something I can (possibly) do something about.

Maybe that's what bothers me so much about fervent discussions about international affairs. What is going to change by talking about it? What is it going to matter what I think? Easy: it's not.

To that end, my wife and I are not the sort of couple that engages each other in spirited debate on matters of politics or happenings in far off places. Sometimes I wish we were that sort of couple but, mostly, I don't.

I think it's great if you're in a relationship where you can fight like James Carville and his wife over politics and then have romper-room-style sex afterwards, but that's just not us. We do our best to figure life out together, and it comes with complexities aplenty, that's for sure. Because we both listen to NPR very frequently, by the time we get home and back into each others' arms where we belong, we're so sick of the daily news anyway, who the hell wants to rehash it all in the dining room or the kitchen.

Besides, we pretty much know how the other one feels about most news stories anyway, even before they happen.