Welcome to the Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. This Sunday we target: Sensing
Visiting the sideshow last week, did we miss out on the full measure of revulsion by avoiding more ballyhoo and the mouse swallowing regurgitator?
Not to worry, MSNBC and The View (among other candidates) are still on the air, or being published or infecting social media?
Should FOX be included or put on a pedestal of righteous inquiry absent mainstream attention?
How do you know unless you go to the show? Does the big top await?
Do we join the rush, the crush, of crowd anxious to witness three ring frenzy?
Do we ‘drink in’ the smells of cotton candy, sugar burning, wood shavings, sawdust and sweat, the animal odors, cheap perfume, hot peanuts and porta potties? Entrancing?
Is circus rowdy, just pain noisy, with music blaring and barkers barking, vendors howling, dogs barking, horses snorting, clowns cavorting, ringmasters announcing, screams and laughter?
Do the before entry spotlights sweeping the skies, and now inside, with the winking , blinking lights, the hand held, luminescent glow sticks, and even more spots showing off acts and crowd reaction make you feel part of the show that must go on?
Isn’t it wonderful, especially if you are 8 or 10, or able to journey back, if only by seeing your own image in wide eyes?
The sights, sounds and smells, the swirl of action, all compelling and diverting, assaulting the senses to overload by the greatest show on earth; is it escape or capture?
Later, trudging back to the car, dragging balloons and kids, is there a sense of “once a year is enough”?
But, is the analog the reality, Mr and Mrs Free, American Citizen, that the show does go on, the circus, of our creation, good or bad, continues to run?
Can we manage and control the acts or should others do it for us or to us? How to affect control?
Should we tolerate some freaks in the sideshows but the big tent requires discriminating and centrist ringmasters? What’s your sensing?
Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living. The answers and actions remain yours.