Tuning Out
It was a bit difficult trying to ignore the ongoing apocalypse. Despite not being able to move a half a mile in any direction without a cavalcade of inconveniences, coming into contact with the outside world feels unavoidable. Political and social issues, even though they are happening leaps and bounds away from my bedroom, seem to be knocking right at my window. Social media and the twenty-hour news cycle has been instilling in me the urge to go out and see what’s happening, while simultaneously telling me not to leave my home. The feeling is, at times, frustrating.
The circumstances of the pandemic haven’t exactly hampered my ability (or lack thereof) to intervene in Ethiopia’s Civil War and the escalating African Horn conflict, rather, they’ve peeled back my eyelids, blasted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and forced me to watch it. With nothing better to occupy my mind with than the glowing screens all over my house, I’ve been sucked into an antsy, idle, and anxious position: watching and reading the news, racking my mind over the absurdities and injustices being committed all around the world, and then waiting and waiting until the next big headline.
All of this came to crude realization: this is entertainment. Watching the news is no different than browsing Hulu or YouTube. I’m sitting here, craving images and controversies to keep myself engaged in this bubble. And, as trends remained consistent, it all started to bore me. Like the seventh season of a sitcom, I’ve been becoming increasingly numb to “500…” “1000…” “3000…” “5000 new cases of coronavirus reported in x-Republican-state.” It just started to become white noise.
At this point, all of it is to be expected, and since there’s so much to care about, it’s just hard to care about anything. Media, as we all know, is a double-edged sword: it has connected the world and is a valuable source of information, but only in small doses. It’s easy to see why the pandemic has made people so miserable; it feels like we’re constantly drowning in this pool of information, and we’re so busy trying to keep ourselves afloat that there is nothing really to latch onto.
So how to cope with all this? Personally, I just turned the TV off. It’s important to stay informed, to be up in the now, but a part of me also knows that it’s important to disconnect sometimes. You don’t have to go on a woodland retreat, either. I was able to find a bit of solace in reading a couple of old books I used to enjoy, doing a bit of cooking and cleaning, painting and drawing, just to give my mind a break.
It’s important to care about what’s going on in the world, but it’s just as important to keep your mind clear and sorted so that you can devote yourself to what you truly care about. What I discovered by limiting my intake of daily events was my filter, keeping my mind active and engaged with what matters most to me, like all of the big steps being taken in the name of social justice, climate change, economic reform, rather than driving myself crazy over another random pandemic panic buy or experimental mosquitos in South Florida. I guess no one can really ignore the apocalypse, but I’m not going to blame anyone for tuning out every once in a while.