Most of what we are made to think we should focus on are Imaginary Problems. After, for instance, the killing of Ben Ladin, we were led to think that we should worry about “whether or not the picture of his corpse should be made public.”
Immediately, the pundit-horde began to worry about the the propriety of showing one or more of those pictures. That, of course, distracted people from focusing on “Why did it take so long to find someone living in the equivalent of a huge mansion standing out like a sore thumb in a nation-sized trailer court?”
As we realize how frequently our attention is distracted by such “problems”, we understand that our minds are crammed about as full of trivia as they can be stuffed. It helps us escape the mental morass if we just stop filling our minds with such sludge.
When we see such a “problem”, it helps to remember that they are invented and publicized in order to appeal to our vanity. Those behind the “problems” are really saying, “We are going to pretend that your thoughts are valuable, so we want you to think about ___________ and give us your valuable opinions on it.”
What they are saying, of course, is that our thoughts are too valuable to waste thinking about The Loving Programmer and the wonderful Creation Program He has downloaded around us, so they must be focused on ephemera while we ignore the painful consequences of bearing false witness pretending that Imaginary Problems are more important than the eternal fate of our souls.
