Why Am I Thinking of Harvey Weinstein Tonight?

We have a tendency to notice only what’s in front of us. But as I was seeing images of celebrities on the red carpet entering the Academy Awards tonight, it was something I did not see that struck me.

I didn’t see the glowing figure of Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood maestro who’s now in a New York jail serving a long sentence for sexual crimes.

Is he watching tonight from the jail TV, I wondered? What must be going through his mind?

There was a time when Oscar night was like Weinstein’s private party. I read somewhere that his films won over 80 Oscars. Everyone knew Harvey was obsessed with that statue. Even in years he didn’t win, it was always his night.

It’s no longer his night. On the red carpet and on the airwaves, he’s nowhere to be seen. No one thinks of him. Of course, given his crimes, no one is missing his presence.

But I think of other people we can’t see who’ve had a huge impact on our lives. It’s not easy to think of them because their images don’t show up on our social media feeds, or on any of the digital screens that own our eyes. Unless we look for them, they’re invisible. It could be a friend or family member who’s no longer with us or lives far away, or even a pundit whose columns we no longer see.

I don’t see Christopher Hitchens’ name anymore on my news feed, but I often wonder what he would say about today’s political madness.

We tend to see only what’s in front of us, but it’s the images we don’t see and the people we don’t think about that can really haunt us and give us pause.

Even the image of a disgraced Hollywood big shot who’s now watching his Big Night alone from a place far away.