Catastrophic Misprints

The excitement generated by the total solar eclipse tomorrow reminds me this morning of the sense of wonder that came to me when I first read Mark Twain’s biography as a young boy.  Twain (aka Samuel Clemens) was born the same month as the passing of Halley’s comet in November 1835.  This comet passes in 75 year cycles.  Twain believed that he would “go out” when the comet passed again on April 20, 1910.  He did!  Twain died on April 21, 1910.  This coincidence astounded me when I first read about it, and it still does.  I’m not into astrology, horoscopes, or the zodiac, but I am a big fan of Mark Twain.

Mark Twain unknowingly offered sound advice for living in this twenty-first century, with its access to 24/7 news and the Internet, when he wrote, “Be careful about reading health books.  You may die of a misprint.”  With the plethora of drugs available “over the counter” (or prescribed) most of them having a long list of drastic side-effects, a misprint can really be disastrous.  A physician advised his patient not to look up her particular malady on the Internet because it might scare her to death!

We are bombarded by so much information through the various media outlets (including social media) that it has become extremely difficult to know what is fact and what is not fact.  “Misprints (misinformation, disinformation) abound.  The side-effects created are just as disastrous and catastrophic for society as a misprint in a health book.

My witty friend, Mark Twain, suggested, “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”  Unfortunately, we are distorting things (misprints) that aren’t even facts!

I must also be willing to look between things and not always at them,
since a direct gaze often misses what may be glimpsed at the corner of the eye.
The space between two branches may become more promising than the branches themselves."
(Barbara Brown Taylor, "The Preaching Life")