What a strange mindset ...

There are periods in these declining years when I have flashes of insight that are so blinding that I'm not sure whether I'm truly seeing behind the obvious or simply fooling myself. It's not as though I feel that I'm simply smarter than those around me; or that age plus experience has brushed away the doubts that shadowed my youth because of a lack of a formal education; but instead I find myself wondering why others can't see what it is that is so obvious to me? Is this something that comes with aging; a given? A gift? Foolishness born of advancing senility?

It comes in different forms and probably is a function of that growing sense of urgency that's creeping into prominence a bit more with each day. Sometime I find myself grinning to no one in particular on the drive home from work -- recalling some crazy incident that happened during the day -- and wondering why humor now has moved to the forefront in my arsenal of defenses. Maybe that's true for us all, and why Keith Olbermann's style of delivering the awfulness of each day's news works so well for me. I must be home by five o'clock each day to watch that critical first half-hour; the items that precede "Now let's play oddball!", and rarely if ever any longer watch the local news. The local body count no longer interests me. It's only then that I'm able to turn to CSPAN to get the raw material that forms the basis for Olbermann's pieces. Olbermann creates a protective layer that enables me to allow the daily ugly truths into my awareness with a feeling that I can handle it now. His commentaries are worthy of Edward R. Murrow's best efforts -- and his ability to probe the minds of his well-chosen guests invariably meet my own points of curiosity and deepen my understanding of the issues. But it is his sense of irony -- his light touch -- that allows me to absorb his meaning and messages and find ways to act on new information that in the hands of someone less deft would leave me paralyzed with numbing fear.

But I'm rambling ... and not expanding on that first paragraph ... but it's where my mind went and I can think of no way to connect these thoughts at the moment.

More later.