If you were to paint this, viewers would think you were exaggerating the colors. Amazingly intense and vibrant and spectacular!
Can I put myself on a news diet? Can I look around at what is wonderful around me and just be ignorant of the horror and terror of the ‘real’ world?
But — this is real too. May I please choose this reality and not that of what we call ‘the media?’ Would that make me irresponsible? Would it make me silly? Would it make me incapable of voting? Would it make me somehow less human? Would it be selfish to ease the weight of anguish and despair? Would I be able to compensate in some other way? Would there be a way to do this without totally withdrawing from the world? Would I be able to participate in other ways?
Would you have any answers?
I think that in any individual life, there always has to be a balance between feeling the weight of everything in the world and recognizing your need for nurturing, for focusing on the here and now. It is not selfish to do so. I wonder a little bit about what it was like before international news was so quick. Was there less of a push and pull between one’s immediate surroundings and worrying about what was happening elsewhere? Or did people worry just as much, while actually just knowing less?
There’s probably always been a struggle to find a balance. The problems in the world are real, yes, but so is the beauty of every moment. If we focused on all the world’s problems all the times, we’d feel crushed by them, and being crushed isn’t a terribly useful condition either for the individual or for the world, so it’s good to focus on the good things, too.
It seems harder to compartmentalize, to move on, to stay balanced. I do think it’s partly the immediacy of the news, its ubiquitousness (it’s even there on the facebook sidelines), its speed…
And I think you are right that people knew a lot less. And didn’t get it in huge doses, all the time, everywhere. You got the paper in the morning and listened to the radio or watched TV news once a day, right after dinner. The major news bombardments from my childhood were when we went into space (Alan Shepard; I was in 5th grade) and JFK’s assassination. Bay of Pigs probably dominated for a while, but I was too young…
I’m sure my internal mental state also colors how I absorb/deflect the world’s troubles as well.