DECEMBER 25, 2022 – My wife is a loyal fan of CBS News Sunday Morning. I’m not, and I don’t have a good reason for my non-fan status. Often, while sitting in an adjoining room hammering out my daily post, I’ll hear Beth laugh in amusement over some feature of the show or call out, “Eric, you’ve got to see this segment on [any number of unusual stories]!” Half the time she either summons me too late, or I’m too slow to react. I wind up seeing more unremarkable ads than amazing stories.
Today, however, I caught an interesting segment on a 16-year old savant who creates “pixel art” from thousands of Rubik’s cubes; another about Newel post caps and finials; yet another about world famous panettone baked by inmates at an Italian prison.
And then there was a story about “Lizzo,” filled with Christmas cheer. Raise your hand if you’ve never heard of this Emmy award winning star whose career got a big boost while she was living in . . . Minneapolis. Umm . . . er . . . am I the only one with an arm in the air?
I kid you not. I’d never heard of this world famous performer whose personality is as powerful as her stage presence. You can learn about her on the internet (that’s a joke directed at myself). In all seriousness, Lizzo (a/k/a Melissa Viviane Jefferson) exudes in abundance, a great sense of humor, along with many other positive traits. She embraces life, as she demonstrated when hug-crushing her high school band director in a surprise encounter arranged by the CBS Morning Show production staff. The director had been a major catalyst early in her ascent to stardom.
As impressed as I was by Lizzo the star, Lizzo the person, I was also struck by my insular view of the world—to describe euphemistically, my wholesale ignorance of pop stars, Rubik’s cube art, Newel post caps (let alone, finials), panettone made by prisoners, and all the other gears, big and small, bright and dull, noisy and quiet that make the world spin. I feel as if I live aboard a small cruise ship, every inch of which I think I know and understand, fitted with windows allowing a view of the open sea and decks where I can walk in the open air, casting my gaze at horizons unrestricted by window frames. But to lean on a polished rail, looking across the open sea and pretending to see the world is an exercise in self-deception, no different from saying I’ve “seen the world” based on my casual look at a wall map of earth.
My oldest sister, a voracious reader, once asked and answered a question about books and culture. “Do you know what culture is?” she said. “It’s all the books you’ve read but can’t remember.”
I’d ask and answer a similar question about us and our planet: “Do you know what makes the world go round?—All the people who think and act and are, whether you’re aware or not.”
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
