It Might Be Best to Know a Little Less

I’ve always had a minor interest in the Hindenburg disaster.  The startling footage captured my attention as a child, the dichotomy of a light news story turned colossal disaster is riveting and since I was a chubby kid with the last name Herndon, I got the occasional moniker of Herndonburg.

That horrific catastrophe happened over three-quarters of a century ago, but recently new video has surfaced.  It’s from a different angle, more a side shot, and shows the pilots having trouble balancing the enormous hydrogen tube.  Once digitized, it’s expected to settle once and for all…or for most…what caused the zeppelin to burst into flames.

The fire was due in part to the Germans’ choice of highly flammable hydrogen gas instead of helium gas which isn’t flammable…but makes you sound like a cartoon character.  The Germans chose hydrogen because the United States refused to sell them helium…and because they were bad decision makers. 

Back then you were responsible for your own decisions so it was the Germans’ fault.  Today I suspect there would be a Congressional investigation and plenty of finger pointing to distract us from an overwhelming National Debt and Congressional decisions that would make Charles Ponzi proud.

Back to my main point, Hindenburg film footage.  What was unusual then, filming an event, is more than commonplace now.  Not only are major and minor historic events recorded for posterity, so are family holidays, casual get-togethers, minor milestones and random acts of stupidity. A television show, America’s Funniest Videos, has nearly made it to a silver anniversary harvesting the more humorous moments of our recorded lives.  It’s hard to believe as recently as 1989 there was no monetary value placed on testicular torsion.

Were the Hindenburg disaster to happen today there’d be a dozen professional film crews along with a hundred or more personal cell phone clips of the event.  Many of which would find their way to the public’s eyes before the first emergency crews arrived.

The busy-body in me likes that kind of access, but the more sensible parts of my persona worries it’s too much information about too many things.  Brains are limited (some more than others) and the start-to-finish coverage we’ve come to expect steals time we ought to using for important things like family time, reading for pleasure and napping.

Consider current meteorological practice.  When a major weather event is expected we’re warned of impending disaster for days.  Grocery shelves are battered, bread and milk scarce, and lines backed up at gas stations.  All because there was a pretty decent chance of a snow storm, thunderstorm, wildfire or combination of the three…that will be over in a few hours.

Even if the worst does happen it’s over relatively quickly, some people suffering but most unaffected.   Then we’re left to devise clever ways to eat bread and milk because cereal and toast get old after a week.

Our brains were developed to do a great job handling a few topics at a time, most of which we could actually influence.  The coming of news media allowed us to look out a window at the world and learn about our fellow man and his significant events, both good and bad; originally for just thirty minutes a day.  There are days now where news coverage of an event runs from morning to night.  Great for the curious mind, terrible for the balanced life, we seem to have gone overboard on knowing and slacked off terribly on doing.  It might be best to know a little less.