Two hundred years ago, waking in the night, I’d have had fewer topics to ponder. For sure I’d have woken – bladders haven’t altered much in two centuries. The light wouldn’t be as good – a candle, maybe an oil lamp. But wakefulness is wakefulness and the famished mind craves grist. “Nothing on my mind” is a phrase, not a fact. We’ve always something, though we may not register what.
So here I am, at two, three a.m., on a winter night in 1824, my superfluity drained, wife asleep, eager to resume my dream but not ready to. I light a candle (the phosphorous match wasn’t invented till 1826, but close enough), hook on my specs, and survey my alternatives for cogitation. Let’s not think about tomorrow, it will be here soon enough – so what instead? I’ve a book by my bed – a familiar leatherbound title (books are expensive, intended to be reread); on the table, a weekly or monthly periodical (though I’ve scanned these pretty thoroughly). There’s always the Bible in a pinch. No TV, radio, podcasts, junk books, or (heaven help me) Zolpidem. Maybe I’ll review material already stowed in memory – or reread Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians though I know it almost by heart. Chances are I’ll be reconsidering – in a world that’s hushed: no icemaker whelping, fire detectors blinking, infernal hums or beeps. A final ember scrapes in the grate.
Fast-forward to today. (When did “fast-forward” join our lexicon?) Piles of unopened books teeter temptingly. Magazines galore. (It’s 2024, not 2124 – there are still magazines.) A creamy voice might read me to sleep through my ear-pods. (Imagine, you can subscribe to recordings that are not too interesting to lull you back to sleep. Pity the author who finds his prose peddled there!) On TV, I might choose among a dozen blathering faces or grainy reruns. And then there’s one’s magic box — smart-phone, tablet, laptop, desktop — connecting us to the latest news and all that was ever known. In 1824, fewer options than fingers; in 2024, an infinitude. “Paralysis in the void of infinite opportunity,” Auden (seventy years ago) described our modern muddle.
Not to drown in this plethora, we default to a routine. We’ve got our bedtime book (a potboiler, not too challenging). Or reruns -- of “The Honeymooners,” why not? Or our Italian vocabulary cards (hope springs eternal). My practice – it is past 12:15 – is to check if my missive’s been sent, then open it as if I were a subscriber, not its inscriber, and rate the experience (Carll’s blabbing today: is he OK?), then click through my half-dozen go-to news sites (why hasn’t anyone shot him yet? No, we don’t want that). Then dread tugs me, as a tot a parent’s sleeve: What might I write about? If no answer volunteers, the preceding question-mark is upgraded to an exclamation: What might I write about!!! Out of this infinitude, what would merit your attention?
No wonder we all have ADD. It’s nerve-wracking, averting one’s gaze from so many supplicants. Gaza, Ukraine, Taylor Swift, Stormy Daniels, political scuttlebutt, a new book on Spinoza, a Handel blowout, the ubiquitous orange blob… I seize a topic, any, like flotsam after a shipwreck, to keep afloat. Maybe the topic, like a magnet beneath filings, will organize the blur in my brain.
Plethora and paucity are alike unpleasant. I get jumpy thinking of all I haven’t thought about. How’s this dope to cope! Desperate we depute our intellect to experts we trust. Biden knows. Or Trump. Now, ahh, the Bensonhurst Bomber episode of The Honeymooners for the umpteenth time. Heaven.