I am very impressionable. I like finishing an evening of television with something positive, so my mind is in a good place when it’s time to sleep. The pain and suffering of others has a way of rubbing off on me, which is why I don’t read the news.
Which means COVID-19 caught me by surprise. And it’s made me question whether my no-news policy is a good one.
Here’s the thing: The news generally depicts the world (unfairly) as a pretty lousy place. I used to read the news growing up at home, and it often made me feel awful about all the crap we heap upon each other.
Taking a permanent break from that was initially difficult – there’s a craving to always KNOW what’s happening out there – but in a very short time, it was merely a relief.
You might say it’s easy for a privileged white man to tune out of the issues happening in the world. I absolutely agree with you – it’s hard for me to feel an emotional attachment to those issues, other than a general feeling of helplessness.
I do better if the issues are close by, like realizing men mistreat women a lot more often than I thought, vis a vis the #metoo movement. But I’ll admit, if I can’t see the people affected, then the motivation to do something about it is a real problem.
This is not simply a matter of laziness for me, but a longer explanation will have to wait for another post.
Anyway, the simply biggest problem of not reading the news is you get side-winded by the Big Bad Stuff. If other people didn’t talk about approaching threats like COVID-19, I’d be pretty much screwed.
But people have been talking about it – a lot of people. So yesterday, for the first time, I opened a web page and started researching what has been happening with COVID-19. I didn’t know what to expect, which was good, because it made the shock easier to handle.
Suffice to say it played a significant role in changing how I shopped for groceries that day, and how I’ll conduct myself in the days ahead. And it will probably lead to my wife and I making plans to be better prepared for future pandemics.
But I’m still not likely to start reading the news, and here’s why.
I have a limited amount of energy to channel at things I care about. Thirty-six years of living has allowed me to store up enough to hold up my end of a marriage and pursue a meaningful calling. But there is very little left over.
So while learning about COVID-19 has changed some of my behaviour, I don’t see myself following every stock market crash, overseas war, local serial killer or emerging disease.
Sure I might react faster if I did, but I’d also be chronically depressed and on constant verge of burnout. Not a good place to try and launch a music career from.
Instead, I use social media as a kind of “canary in the coal mine” to warn me if something particularly bad is coming. And the risk I’m accepting by doing this is I will be less prepared than those doing the warning.
But I will be a person happier overall, with more energy to channel into something I believe in, so I can help the world in my own way. That, for me, is the ultimate point of being alive.