I had a thought as I was driving to work today. When I was a kid, I didn't care about the news. The only things that concerned me were those in my immediate life--school, friends, family. If it wasn't important for everyday life, it wasn't important. And the world felt wide-open.
As I grew older, the world closed down, even as it got larger. The paths that I saw branching before me as a kid closed off, one by one. The oft-repeated "You can be anything you want to be" was gradually revealed as the falsehood it is.
Things that seemed like the be-all and end-all when I was a kid became small potatoes as an adult. Looking back at those "life and death" moments, you realize just how unimportant they really are in the grand scheme of things. Unimportant now, and unimportant then.
What does this have to do with the news? The news makes you feel unimportant. It shows you have little or no control over the happenings of the world, and it convinces you that these things over which you have no control are things that you should be expending energy on. Why wouldn't they be important--they're on the news!
All those "life and death" moments you have as a kid are important. They were important then, and moments like that are important now. Individual moments, individual relationships, the comings and goings of everyday life.
I felt a bit of that today. I felt a bit of the feeling that the world was opening again, in a good way. I can't be sure it's connected to my skipping the news, but I think it is.
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