To survive as an investigative journalist you have to nurture your hunter instinct. At first all you may have is a whiff of a possible story, nothing at all concrete.
But as you follow that scent, something deep inside takes over and you can tell when you are the trail of your prey, when the trail has gone cold, and how you can pick it up again.
It's great exercise for your brain, which is hard-wired for this kind of work from millennia of hunting as the means of survival.
Once you get pretty good at the hunt, you will eventually bag enough trophies to fill a display case, if that suits your sensibilities. If not, they'll make great playthings for your young grandchildren.
During my career in journalism, many people told me they considered me a mentor, somebody they could approach for advise about the hunt, especially about which tactics to use and how to find the trail when it goes missing.
Of course, by asking, they became my mentor, whether they realized that or not. But I happily play the mentor role with people to this day. And I also know that's something missing in the process -- both for them and for me. Because succeeding in one more hunt is not necessarily going to satisfy the hunter in the long run.
All it achieves in the end is the realization that you are a hired gun, maybe for good and righteous purposes, but hired nonetheless and who in their right mind wants to be a gun?
What I'm talking about is the damage you do to yourself along the way, and this goes way beyond journalism to anybody who pursues a career that involves even a smidgen of ambition.
Put simply, we want and we need more than that kind of success when inevitably we confront our mortality.
Starting with the basics, even hunters need a home to come back to at the end of the day and they need someone to be there for them. If this sounds like a typical marriage with a hunter husband and a nurturing wife, it could be that for some, or the roles could be reversed, or it might be that there are two hunters or two nurturers or maybe the whole thing is all mixed up and nobody plays any conventional role, gender or otherwise.
When it comes to our private needs, a hunter is not going to find what she needs by following her brain. Logical ability, pattern-recognition skill, the discipline to close the deal -- none of that will bring her happiness or peace.
To attain those, you have to listen to your heart, as the lyrics of today's song remind me over and over again. The heart seems to generate an intuitive empathy that may directly contradict everything your hunter career has been made of as you merge at last with the hunted.
And once you confront this dilemma, you know longer can belong to your career or even the life you have built around it. You have to venture somewhere deeper, scarier, someplace that may feel like uncharted territory.
You have to belong to your dreams.
***
Binge Report:
Four more movies. Romance as a kid ("Flipped"); a youth ("After"); and an adult ("Getting to Know You"). And then there is "Home Again" with the always lovable Reese Witherspoon. That one confuses me. Is a movie about how life is like a movie that is about how a movie is like life about life or the movies?
Or does it even matter. After all, the trouble with an actor is you never know whether she is acting or not. And the trouble with both movies and life is they have to end sometime and that is not a take. That's a hard cut.
***
As part of my mission to get everyone to interview their parents, grandparents and old friends before it's too late, one of my radio friends says that the easiest and best app comes right with your iPhone -- the "voice memo app."
Use it.
THE HEADLINES:
* EU launches big climate plan for "our children and grandchildren" (Reuters)
* Yet another major heat wave is set to roast the western U.S. and Canada by the weekend (WP)
* Drought Hits the Southwest, and New Mexico’s Canals Run Dry -- Acequias, the fabled irrigation ditches that are a cornerstone of New Mexican culture, have endured centuries of challenges. Can they survive the Southwest’s megadrought? (NYT)
* Smoke from the River fire burning north of Fresno has been visible to satellites and has prompted a health caution to San Joaquin Valley residents. (Fresno Bee)
* Hundreds of millions of marine animals were killed by the combination of intense heat and drought that hit the Western United States and Canada over the past two weeks. (NYT)
* Wildfires in US West threaten parched Native American lands (AP)
* Iranian Agents Are Facing Charges For Their Role In A Plot To Kidnap A U.S. Journalist (NPR)
* Taliban press advances, take key border post with Pakistan (AP)
* Twitter sees jump in government demands to remove content of reporters, news outlets (Reuters)
* In Cuba, Covid-19 Stress Pushes Unrest to the Edge --The damage brought by the pandemic has inflicted deep economic adversity, as the island’s healthcare system buckles and tourism and remittances evaporate. (WSJ)
* U.S. overdose deaths hit record 93,000 in pandemic last year --
* DEMS EYE BIG EXPANSION OF MEDICARE Senate Democrats pitched a $3.5 trillion “human” infrastructure bill they intend to pass under special budget reconciliation rules that will allow them to avoid a Republican filibuster. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators is drafting a separate bill that would invest about $1.1 trillion into traditional infrastructure projects. If both are passed, it will come "very, very close" to what President Joe Biden asked Democrats for, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. [HuffPost]
* The COVID-19 curve in the U.S. is rising again after months of decline, driven by the fast-spreading delta variant, lagging vaccination rates and Fourth of July gatherings. As parts of the country run up against deep vaccine resistance, all but two states — Maine and South Dakota — reported that case numbers have gone up over the past two weeks.
* Schools Are Receiving $129 Billion in Stimulus Aid. Where Is It Going?
There’s money for summer schools, tutors and field trips, but other urgent needs will not be addressed. (NYT)
* Trump Justice Dept. effort to learn source of leaks for Post stories came at end of Barr’s tenure, court documents show (WP)
* Here’s Who Will Be Left Behind in the Housing Boom -- During the pandemic, many remote workers relocated to cheaper cities, pricing out locals in the process. (NYT)
* Hope and Disappointment for the Homeless in Oakland (California Today)
* Three leading Senate Democrats are set to unveil an early version of their plans to legalize marijuana, setting up a crucial test of how far the party is willing to go to end and unwind the “war on drugs.” But there's seemingly little chance of the proposal becoming law in the immediate future, as Biden opposes legalization and many lawmakers think it's a fringe cause. [HuffPost]
* Hong Kong exodus gathers pace as thousands vote with their feet (WP)
* Russia’s most aggressive ransomware group disappeared. It’s unclear who disabled them. -- REvil, blamed for some of the most audacious attacks on the United States, suddenly cannot be found — even their negotiations with victims stopped. It is unclear if Russia or America disabled them. (NYT)
* Democratic tensions surface as House incumbents plan defense against far-left primary challengers (WP)
* Doug Jensen, a QAnon conspiracy theorist who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in support of former Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was ordered released on home incarceration by a federal judge. Jensen believed he was at the White House, not the Capitol, and the judge cited Jensen's lack of a grade-school level understanding of the U.S. government in the decision to release him. [HuffPost]
* The rise of Tucker Carlson as the preeminent voice of angry White America -- With the defeat of Trump and the death of Rush Limbaugh, the Fox News host has emerged as a dominant force shaping a Republican Party energized by racial resentment. (WP)
* Why Jane Goodall Still Has Hope For Us Humans (NYT Mag)
* Study Finds Majority Of Non-Shark-Related Fears Completely Unjustified (The Onion)
***
Listen to Your Heart
I get a notion from the look in your eyes, yeah
You've built a love but that love falls apart
Your little piece of Heaven turns too dark
Listen to your heart, there's nothing else you can do
I don't know where you're going and I don't know why
But listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye
The precious moments are all lost in the tide, yeah
They're swept away and nothing is what is seems
The feeling of belonging to your dreams
Listen to your heart, there's nothing else you can do
I don't know where you're going and I don't know why
But listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye
No comments:
Post a Comment