We sometimes have to put aside the mantel of reason, logic, and passion for humanity, and simply be ourselves, lest we forget what we are really striving for. It is too easy to become disconnected from the very humanity and world we are attempting to save, when we put our heads down and plow ahead, into the fray. – Nefarious Newt, commenting on “Bleak hauser.”

He’s a wise man, the Newt is.

I have never been particularly ill-informed.

Even in high school, I think I followed the news (and struggled to make sense of it) more closely than the average bear — I remember writing in my journal about the Sandinistas, and the re-election of Ronald Reagan. During my only year at an American college (St. Olaf – um ya ya!), I was instrumental in the organization of fundraiser for Project Hunger, and I travelled to D.C. to protest this country’s involvement in Central America. Lord knows that while living in Israel I was up on current events — and I challenge you to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago and fall behind on the news. After graduate school, what did I do? Write and edit for a woman who dealt heavily in issues of social justice, and then began to write my own newspaper commentary. Honestly, I’ve been keeping track!

And yet.

About a year and a half ago I began to develop a habit of reading certain politics-heavy websites and blogs on a regular, and then daily, basis, particularly in the lead-up to and successful conclusion of the ’08 elections.

I’m online, quite legitimately, all day anyway — such connectivity is, in this the 21st century, a fairly basic requirement if one is a writer dealing with current events and contemporary history and (more than the writer likes to admit) new topics about which one may initially know little — and, you know: There’s all this cool stuff on the web! You know what they say: Good writing is 3% talent and 97% ignoring the internet. C’est vrai, baby!

But the habit of searching out and reading the news, and/or reactions to the news, in one form or another, has grown deeper, particularly as I began blogging myself, and as a result, I think that I now know much more, in much greater detail, about what goes into making the sausage that we call Democracy, as well as the one we call Modern American Society, than I ever did before.

And it ain’t pretty.

And, I’m not sure that, in this case, more knowledge is a good thing. Indeed, I think that knowing more has made me more pessimistic, less cheery, more prone to melancholy.

Which, you know, don’t misunderstand: This is a matter of degree. I have always been prone to a certain pessimism, lack of cheeriness, and melancholy (of course, with my grin and friendly demeanour, this is not how I typically present, so it often comes as something of a surprise to new friends. Whee, who doesn’t like a surprise!) — but frankly, I don’t need the help.

I don’t think the answer is, as I was once counseled, to turn off the news. To ignore reality. Reality, not infrequently, sucks, and it is our job to deal with that suckage and work to set it right. My not-knowing won’t make anything better, and might, in a tiny, infinitesimal way, make things worse.

But this weekend, when I was away with friends, I didn’t know a god damn thing. We went for long walks under cerulean skies, watched lady bugs take flight off our jeans, and skipped (or sunk) stones in the waves of Lake Michigan. We ate gorgeous food, drank too much, and talked of nothing and a very great deal.

And it struck me, as I came back to my habit of toggling between Talking Points Memo and the New York Times, Balloon Juice and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Wonkette and Gawker, that re-filling my head with sorrow and worry was a rather head-desking way to re-enter reality. And that perhaps my personal reality is more shaped by those sites and their analogs than might, strictly speaking, be healthy.

That maybe a new balance might be in order: more LOLcats, and less TPMCafe, perhaps.

Perhaps.

I’m not sayin’. I’m just, you know… sayin’.

So there I am, late last night, reading the New York Times, and lo: Here’s a little piece by the Frugal Traveler, about the search for truly personal souvenirs (accompanied by a delightful picture of a rubber tree seed [bigger than you might think!] in, one can only assume, the Frugal Traveler’s own hand).

Matt Gross, the Traveler, tells the tale of the on-going search, in the course of his journeys, for something that really means something to him — nothing mass produced, nothing kitschy, nothing that Everyone Else Has — something that will “fulfill the French root of the word ‘souvenir’ and help you to remember your adventure.”

Of course, he also always has an eye on the “frugal” side of things, which reminded me of Elizabeth Peters, a contemporary of my grandparents who I also considered a friend, who would save her limited cash until she had enough to travel — and then collect squares of toilet paper, for she could afford nothing else. (And as anyone who has ever traveled outside of their own country knows, “toilet paper” is a very changeable item!)

But what really grabbed my attention was the drive for the personal meaning. I know this drive, for it drives me, too, whenever I’m someplace new. I don’t want what everyone else from far away has. I want something truly rooted in the place, something that means that I, Emily, was there, something that no one else (or at least few someone elses) will carry home in their bag.

Because I’m not like everyone else. I’m not a “tourist.” I’m An Individual.

And that’s where my brain finally rested, last night: The drive among a certain kind of traveler/American/member of Western society to always and forever be An Individual.

I sense that this is something new-ish in human society. After all, society draws us together — ultimately, for reasons of safety. There is safety, as we know, in numbers. Not in striking out on one’s own.

But America highly prizes the individual, the pioneer, the iconoclast. Indeed, this drive to be a non-conformist is so American as to be fully exploited by that most American of industries: advertisers. As Brian first told us: We Are All Individuals!

But those of us who consider ourselves among the country’s intellectual (if not economic) elite in particular guard our differences, often more zealously than we guard our commonalities. I may look like I’m here with all this hoi-polloi, but really: I’m here by myself. I just ran into them on the way.

Of course, I say “in particular,” but that’s probably not the case. I don’t really know the hearts and minds of the middle-to-low brow, or the lower middle class, the working poor, or the flat-out poor. I often think I do, but I really don’t. I think it’s a safe bet that they, like me, don’t want to be considered an unindividuated member of whatever group they are identified with.

But I find this drive curious, because honestly: Who cares? Who cares if I buy a postcard bought by a million other tourists (and yes, when I visit a foreign land, or even Springfield, IL, I am – shudder – a tourist). Why does this matter to me so much? Why do things — objects, experiences — seem less authentic to me if they are broadly shared?

I struggle with this (honestly: struggle) with regard to my passion for U2. They are the single biggest rock band on earth, but I want to believe that they say something really, really special to me. And people like me. Who are, of course, few in number. And special!

I think I wish that I were more comfortable with the common search for individuality — with the fact that no matter what we do or how we do it, where we travel, and what we bring home from the journey, even if it looks identical on the surface, each person’s experience will be different. Individual.

And I really kind of wish I had the rubber tree seed. It’s beautiful!