The world seems an increasingly confused place. Maybe confused is not the correct word. Complicated sounds good but it is a little too simplistic. Obfuscate, a word that threatens to obscure my whole point, seems most appropriate for the meaning I am trying to convey, but where did a word like that come from? It is certainly not a word I commonly use.
In 1973 I was a 19 y/o college dropout wandering the Middle East and Europe. My short experience in college made me realize I was not prepared for higher education. I decided to learn how to read and write; skills I had managed, despite a mainly Catholic education, to almost completely by-pass. To that end I started to keep a journal and made a point to read anything I could get in my hands. Not always an easy task in Israel, Greece and Norway.
Despite the content, I read, paid attention to the grammar, and looked up every word I did not know the meaning of. It made for hard going, I had a lot of catching up to do. I still do this today, and one constant over the last thirty-seven years has been my yellowing copy of The Penguin English Dictionary Second Edition complied by G.N. Garmonsway. I have kept it close by since I bought it at Blackwell’s, Oxford’s famous bookstore, for one pound. It might be the best investment I ever made.
But now back to our obfuscated world and a recent example that comes to mind. My golf-loving brother-in-law came to visit and after driving all day up from the South he needed to find out the standings of the PGA tournament. He headed for our backroom where the flat screen television resides, grabbed the first remote in sight and started pushing buttons. In horror my wife and I ran into the room to disarm him before disaster struck.
Though I am sure many of you will relate to my tale; some background is needed here. Due to our total inability to make sense of our audio-visual equipment (something akin to my parents struggle with their VCR) I bought a universal remote and then paid a young technician quite a hefty sum to program it. After multiple visits and a new receiver, his efforts were successful, but now we lived in constant fear that an errant push of a button would transport us back to the dark days of four remotes with Post-it notes outlining the proper sequence of keystrokes.
He was not to be deterred and went for each remote in sight. Voices were raised, but family has no privilege here, and he had to be subdued. We gained control after a tense stand off. Once order was restored his big sister had a heart-to-heart, while I hide the other three remotes. Finally he was able to sit back and watch catapulting white balls as much as he liked, which I can report he did for the entire weekend.
This is what I mean by obfuscate. The obfuscation (confusion resulting from failure to understand) of things that were straightforward in the past is the preoccupation of contemporary culture. Here are just a few examples.
Think of your phone, Internet, cable or satellite services. Think of the choices of audio formats: MP3, CD, DVD, not to mention the renewed interest in long-playing vinyl records by the young who are searching for simplicity. Think of going to buy a new flat screen TV and think about when it is time to sign up for your healthcare and retirement plans.
This plethora of choices is masquerading as progress. Don’t get me wrong here; I love my gadgets as much as the next person but I will admit to certain weariness with it all.
Rikyu said in his Hundred Verses (here translated by Gretchen Mittwer), “To learn how to make good koicha (thick tea), you must make it time and again and get a good sense of it.” How then can there be time to get a good sense of the world if our time is spent trying to understand that, which is meant to confuse.
Volume 5820 (4), 8/20/2010
