Current Quandary

The news stations yesterday reported that Tiger Woods will return to golf in three weeks at The Masters. Then they went on to “report” on a variety of details: Will it hurt his chances? Will fans heckle him? How will he handle it if they do? Will Elin be by his side? What if she’s not?

Here’s an idea: How about we learn what happens when the event actually occurs?

We’ve become a society that runs at such high speed that we get ahead of ourselves — ahead of reality, actually. Who has time to wait for an event to actually take place? Let’s pretend it’s already occurred and follow every branch of potential outcome.

Take press conferences, for example. By definition, this is an event where an announcement is made and questions are answered. But have you noticed that these days all the details are already shared in advance of the actual press conference? Often reporters don’t even couch it with “is expected to announce,” instead launching into what will be announced, what it means, how the opposition reacts, who benefits, who doesn’t. By the time the press conference actually occurs, there is no news, except old news.

It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when we got our news after the fact, post event. Then real-time reporting came along, which was tremendous (although sometimes inaccurate). But now adays, real time is for amateurs. Now events happen before they happen. And we get reactions from people on things that haven’t even occurred. “How will you feel if you take home the Oscar?”

No wonder we all have trouble living in the moment. We’ve already pre-experienced the moment yesterday.

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