The big shaggy: a very strange New York Times comment
I mentioned yesterday my love affair with The New Yorker. I equally love The New York Times. Especially the columnists. My friend Kersti was saying the NYT encourages a workplace structure where they give their top journalists time off the newsdesk to reflect. And write considered pieces. Which explains a lot.
David Brooks is a New York Times columnist who I follow and yesterday he wrote the kookiest column ever about the importance of delving deep and exploring what he calls The Big Shaggy. It’s an insane concept for a conservative columnist to tackle. The Big Shaggy is the inner beast within that controls our yearnings. The Big Shaggy makes us do irrational, primal stuff, like have affairs or lash out in appropriately. It sits in our dark space.
This is David Brooks...I like his glasses.
We must make friends with The Big Shaggy, he says. Ergo, Brooks’s main argument: It’s important to study the humanities in order to understand a complex world. While fields such as economics, political science and game theory are important, they don’t inform us about the emotional passions that drive people. Right on. Studying liberal arts, as opposed to accounting is about meeting humanity’s Big Shaggy.
…Over the centuries, there have been rare and strange people who possessed the skill of taking the upheavals of thought that emanate from The Big Shaggy and representing them in the form of story, music, myth, painting, liturgy, architecture, sculpture, landscape and speech. These men and women developed languages that help us understand these yearnings and also educate and mold them. They left rich veins of emotional knowledge that are the subjects of the humanities.
He reckons bloggers don’t cut it:
Technical knowledge stops at the outer edge. If you spend your life riding the links of the Internet, you probably won’t get too far into The Big Shaggy either, because the fast, effortless prose of blogging (and journalism) lacks the heft to get you deep below.
And that we need to befriend our Big Shaggys:
If you’re dumb about The Big Shaggy, you’ll probably get eaten by it.
I like it. Odd, but I like it. My Big Shaggy shifts when I confront it via my writing. It becomes interesting and precious and funny. Which lessens it’s power. My Big Shaggy can see me eat mindlessly, not sleep, cry deeply and generally get messy, all of which can be seen as a beast or a little friend.
Sarah, I love you in New York. (Ok, I jut want to make it clear from the start that I love you in Oz too, but I am especially in love with you in New York.)
Each entry which you have written (I assume while you have been the library) has been another kick up the bum for me to finally get my blog started. I am by no means an accomplished writer, but have been writing weekly about my experiences of working within the food industry ever since first working in Melbourne 6 years ago. Now back in Perth studying Advertising and Art Direction, my focus is slightly shifting, but my theme remains the same, a reflection on the way people interact. I seem to constantly been drawn to your page as a source…not inspiration…but leadership and confidently say that it is one of 4 pages that is bookmarked on my computer and read daily.
Sarah, enjoy your time in New York.
I hope you have found yourself a bike to ride daily and a piece of grass in Central Park to sit.
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The Big Shaggy!!! I love the name, it conjures up a shambling, primal beast, leaning against the fence wires of our civilised veneer, straining to get out!! I used to call this beast that made you react in unexpected ways The Crazy Within, but I quite like The Big Shaggy, it seems more accessible, and less likely to cause a margarita bender.
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Sarah…another beauty, thank you…I reckon you’ll be confronting the Big Shaggy a fair bit in the next few months as you tackle your book…make sure you surround yourselves with loved ones who can hug you, share a cuppa with or shake you (in a loving way?) so you don’t do damage to yourself…
I was interested in Brooks comments about blogging and recalled something I read the other day from a Nicholas Carr whose written a book called the Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brains. He discusses the point that the net is creating a distracted, shallow way of thinking… Being a great book lover, I particularly loved this quote: “The great thing about a printed book is that there’s nothing else going on. It shields you from distractions, focuses your concentration. That’s actually an unnatural mode of thought, but it’s an extraordinarily valuable one. I argue that it was the book that in large measure trained us to be attentive, deep thinkers over the past 500 years, since Gutenberg invented the printing press. As text moves from the quiet page to the busy screen, we’re in danger of losing that mode of thought. We’re returning to our natural state of distractedness – but with more distractions than ever.” (Sorry it’s so long!) Hooray…
And Caitlyn – jump into your blog, but dive deep like Sarah does….
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Not really a new concept. The ancient Greeks new this also its written about by Fredrick Nietzsche and later by Frued and Carl Young…
silly name but its good
I agree with him.
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I have been doing more in depth reading as part of my postgraduate studies. Currently working through Necessity, Volition & Love by Harry G. Frankfurt with a particular focus on Wholeheartedness. Sometimes my head hurts during & after reading (just like my muscles do after a particular hard or nuanced workout) but it is a good “pain”.
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A wonderful read, keep blogging!
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Hey Sarah, hope all’s going well in the Big Apple! Love your latest. I completely know what he means about how blogging lacks the ‘heft for you to go deep below’. Wow, that’s so true. I love my blog but I also crave working on something meaty (like the book I’ve been promising to write for so many years).
Maybe I’ll embrace My Big Shaggy this long weekend and actually get started (famous last words!)
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I love the idea of owning that beast within; the irrational and unpredicatable side of yourself, like a really persuasive, drunken best friend who rocks into town every few months. Something about that idea of acknowledging the Shaggy appeal to me: name it and tame it, maybe. Excellent post.
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Oh hello My Big Shaggy, you’re the one who knocks down my fabulous ideas and takes the puff out of my sails when I think I’m onto that BIG thing or when I find the thinking inside me that is going to help me realise my potential. I actually think you’re challenging me but to my ears you sound like doubt. I blog about fluff but from the silliness is evolving thought. I blog to write. I think my Big Shaggy is just waiting for it to become something more interesting.
Always loving your writing and thoughts Sarah but particularly loving you in New York.
Thanks for the inspiration.
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