Baltasar Gracian: on trivia

No. 121

"Do not make a business of the trivial.  Just as some can make a tale out of anything, so others can make a business of everything:  they always speak importantly, they take all things seriously, making of everything either a case, or a mystery.  To convert petty annoyances into matters of importance, is to become seriously involved in nothing.  It is to miss the point, to carry on the chest what has been cast from the shoulders.  Many things which were something, by being left alone, became nothing; and others which were nothing, became much because messed into: in its beginnings it is easy to make an end of anything, but not so later; for many a time, the remedy itself brings out the disease: by no means the worst rule of life, to let things rest."

-- Baltasar Gracian --
The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Baltasar Gracian died in 1658, over 350 years ago.  It's obvious that the human race hasn't changed much since his time.  Much of which passes for news today is really the trivial blown out of proportion.  What one person said thirty years ago becomes a focus of a media feeding frenzy.

But it's too simplistic to blame it on the media for they compete for the greatest audiences, and they know what people are interested in.  If people weren't obsessed with trivia about other people's lives and perhaps mistakes, the media wouldn't focus on the irrelevant and insignificant.


"Just as some can make a tale out of anything, so others can make a business of everything:  they always speak importantly, they take all things seriously, making of everything either a case, or a mystery."

Does the above quotation fits anybody you can think of on radio or TV today?