and a host of others, and I watch CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC with reasonable regularity. I deal daily with a pretty smart grade of person. I can discuss current events without making a fool of myself. And still, I find to my increasing consternation, that I’m having a harder and harder time making sense of things.

I wonder about this creeping sense of overwhelm. I suppose I could pass it off as my age, but that leaves me a bit out of breath. If I at 47 struggle to understand what’s going on in Iraq, just to pick one example, what does that say about the folks making all the big decisions in their undisclosed locations who are much older than I? No, that one seems way too simple, ageist, and unbecoming.

Another possible explanation is that the world has just gotten a lot more complex. Nobody can understand all of it, or even a lot of it. I like that idea because it accounts for everything without meaning anything. I can assert it with great confidence because I know I’m not wrong about this. At any time in the last thousand years or so, any two people could be sitting around