Days Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-one, Twenty-two, and Beyond: Final Scorecard

Well, I think this experiment is at an end. No, not the news experiment--that's going strong. The blog experiment.

I'm glad I gave it a try--and who knows, maybe I'll be back with a less-frequently updated blog with actual interesting stuff to say--but I'm not sure my chosen topic was the most fruitful choice for daily updates. I thought it had a chance, but I found very little to say after the first ten days or so. I mostly reiterated what was in Dobelli's original piece.

Anyway, final scores:

• Quitting the news: A. I quit, I haven't gone back, and I have no desire to go back. On the occasions that a headline makes its way towards me (a stray radio headline; the crawl across the bottom of the TV screen; a Facebook comment; stupid cut-in 11:00 news promos during primetime), I am usually more annoyed than intrigued, and the content only justifies my decision with its insipidness.
• Benefits of quitting the news: A. I've picked up more interesting reading and found some good new websites.
• Using my newly found free time well: B. Still need to get better at this. Reading news does not have to be replaced with reading other stuff. Maybe with the spring and summer coming, I can convince myself to be more outdoorsy.
• Blogging: C+. I don't think my posts were as interesting as I thought they'd be, and I don't think I was able to spend enough time to craft them rather than just draft them. This format's not for me.
• Knowing blogging's not for me: A. Hey, it goes along with the whole theme of giving up the news--spend time on the things that are worth it for you. Right here, right now, with this topic, it's not worth it for me, so I'll spend the time on something better.

Anyway, that's the whole story. Overall, I think it's been a worthwhile change, and I hope it'll be a catalyst for bigger and better things.

Day Eighteen: The Day After Day Seventeen...

...and before Day Nineteen, when I should have another post.

Day Seventeen: Zen

I've also been reading about zen and meditation lately, and it's amazing the parallels between the ethic behind quitting the news and the zen mindset.

I am not a Zen master (or even a Zen beginner), so this is all based on my very limited understanding of the philosophy. However, it seems that living in the moment, being mindful of everything that's happening, and realizing that right now is the only moment that matters are all tenets of Zen (so far as Zen has tenets); while news goes against all of those. It takes your mind away from the present and from what matters. It is, to me, the very definition of mindlessness.

Zen is about exploring the limits of your own mind and how you relate to the world, what your place is. News is about bombarding you with messages and information from outside yourself, chosen by people other than you, and delivering a viewpoint to you. News tells you what your place is, even if you don't agree.

I guess I did have a few more newsy posts in me. I think I will shift to talking about news substitutes in the future, though.

Day Sixteen: Long Day

Been a long day and I have nothing to write. Other than it's a whole lot easier to avoid the news when you don't really have time to think.

Day Fifteen: Modern Community

No, not the best sitcom mashup ever. Although that would be one pretty awesome mashup. I'm actually talking about community in the modern world.

Davy Jones' death got me thinking about it. At first, I wondered if by not reading news, I was in for a lifetime of not knowing when certain famous celebrities die. Would it get to the point where I was like "Hey, I hope the next Terminator move stars Arnold" only for someone to answer "Arnold's been dead for six years, where have you been?!?"?

Then I realized that would never happen. I mean look at poor Davy. Not the biggest of celebrities anymore, yet I knew the day of his death that he had gone. Primarily through Facebook, but also through an in-person comment.

That led to me thinking, hey, maybe I need to give up FB to be truly news-free (still haven't decided on that, but continuing to allow FB for now, with the newsreader apps blocked so I don't see others' headlines). But then it hit me--suppose I give up FB. It's not like everyone else is going to give it up. That virtual community will still exist, and it will still supplant actual community with or without me.

Online social networks supplanting actual community. I know I'm not the first one to have that thought, and people have been bemoaning the demise of community since the popularization of television; nevertheless, I found it interesting to think about.

Now I need to get working on that mashup...

Days Thirteen/Fourteen: Week Two Scorecard

Week two scorecard. Same as the week one scorecard.

Well, maybe a bit better. I'm feeling like the turning of a corner has stuck. I don't really have that itch to be checking any of my news sites. And I'm feeling good about not reading things that make me miserable (intentionally or not). So that's all good.

Still not filling my time the best way, although that's getting better too. Been reading higher quality stuff, so that's good (I'm hard at work on Borges' complete fictions, which are blowing my mind and giving me lots of ideas). A bit too much checking the websites I still check, though. I'm going to concentrate on stamping that out next.

As for it seeming like a limited-time experiment, that feeling's starting to go away as well.

Not sure there's a whole lot more to say about the lack of news. I thought it was bad for me; cutting it out made me realize even more that it's bad for me; I'm feeling better and more creative; game, set, match. I may have a few more thoughts on the whole concept of no news (and who knows what else might hit me in the meantime), but I think I'll start using this space to talk about some of the material I'm filling the news hole with.

Unless I have a relapse.

Day Twelve: What I Don't Miss

Luckily, at this point, I don't seem to be missing much of anything. However, there are some things I didn't really miss from the beginning.

Politics. I so don't miss this. Politicians lying and spinning statements and events in ways that make you wonder exactly how stupid they think people are. It's such a show at this point. It's ridiculous. I hate all the politicians, all their artifice, and the mockery our government has become.

Political discourse. Along the same lines as the first, I also do not miss what passes for discourse these days. The loudest voices dominate, and they stake out a position based on self-identity rather than facts. The other part of discourse I really don't miss is the media's insistence on giving equal time to both sides of an issue, no matter how inane it is (I'm looking at you, evolution vs intelligent design).

Gloom and doom. Don't miss the pessimistic stories about the upcoming economic, political, and environmental cataclysm. Some of it may come to pass, but constantly reading articles about it really doesn't help.

And one thing I do miss...

Sports news. I miss it a little bit. But I hate March Madness, so it all works out.