I often like to imagine that I m somehow above the commonplace drive to indulge in gossip, whether spreading or consuming.  Of course I am not.

On the other hand, that I fail in this respect does not convince me that one's efforts to resist are not worthwhile, or are themselves implicitly self-righteous.  The trouble is the devotion of any sensitivity to this cause reveals a daunting onslaught which no one person could resist, particularly in a culture such as ours which does not value or praise such resistance.

Particles and waves.  People each have their own individual  ideas about the world which are really quite distinct from the next person's.  But they form aggregates which have peculiar common tendencies.  And one partakes of those tendencies, like a drop of water follows along with the ripples and waves of whatever body it is part of, though once it was rain.

Our culture is a vulgar one.  I struggle constantly with this reflection. Perhaps it has only gotten so much bigger because so many more people now have means and leisure to have a voice.  And then I think, if ever I were to find an audience for my own efforts that I could only thank the vulgarity of the culture willing to receive me.

We must fight the wanton variety of capitalism.