| | No News Is Good News, part 2
Thank you all for your comments! You too ponder these questions. I hope the general public as a whole will come to think about these things too..giving some concious thought to it (regardless of the answers we all find). I hope it can bring some changes to how the media operates eventually.
What do I think?
Well, the older I get, the more I tend to gravitate away from the news. There are several reasons for this...hmm..here are the ones that come immediately to mind:
1. I don't like the trend towards the entertainment-reality show format that nearly all news sources have adopted. When Don Henley released "Dirty Laundry" in the 80s, I had only a vague idea of the phenomenon he was talking about. Ok, ok...I get it now. So does the media. That's why they capitalize on it....they want to appeal to (among other things that I'm sure you've thought of too) that temptation to be sucked into gossip. Namztis put it so well...it's almost enjoyable to experience the shock over a news story...kind of like a soap opera. And we all know how the soaps have that addictive quality to them.....and how sinking into gossip does too. Gossip kind of feels entertaining at first, but then I find my conscience catches up to me after indulging a bit, and I end up feeling yucky in a spiritual sense...like the stale low after a caffeine high.
Anyway, it's no coincidence that the media seems to market itself to appeal to that bottomless need for.....something, yes?
2 We stopped watching the news when our toddler son became interested in the images he was seeing on the tv. That was over 8 years ago, and well..I guess we've just gotten out of the habit. Then a few years later, repeated images of planes crashing into buildings was a real enforcement to just stick with PBS.
3. News can alter one's perceptions of reality. If you believe that we each create our own reality, than we each have a choice on what to focus our lives upon. If focusing my attention on my family, friends, local environment, and the interesting things we wonder about and do say and learn about each day any less real than what is happening in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Katmandu? Yet, it's hard to really focus on my local life here and all that other stuff...I have to choose. And I find it far healthier and more direct to focus on my immediate life. I can mindfully and directly experience that, and will have a far greater impact than I can worrying about hat is happening elsewhere.
Knitsteel brought up that there have been studies that have shown that people who watch too much news can experience a phenomenon like post traumatic stress syndrome to events that happen to other people, experienced indirectly through images we see on the news. That changes one's reality.
A person in my immediately family seems to be an example of this. Until she recently changed jobs, (and she may still do the following, I don't know) She was plugged into news talk radio all day while at work. She listened to it during her one-way 45-minute commute,(both ways) and while at her desk at work. Her head was filled with current events. She feels it is important to know what is going on in the world, but she sees a world that is a cruel, unfair, unsafe place, unfit for any new life to enter. She has said to we kids that she hopes she does not have any more grandchildren, because she doesn't want to worry about any more of them navigating their way through this terrible world. I can't share her view. I am raising children, and I can't plug them into the belief that the world is a miserable unsafe place that they will have to endure for the rest of their lives.
Is the world really worse off now than it has ever been? Or does it seem that way with the invention of global communication? "Times have changed" people say all the time. Yes they have...but in totality, looking back through what we know of world history, is it really worse now than ever before?
Even though I tend to stay away from the news, I get that nagging feeling that I shouldn't just ignore all the suffering in the world. I should recognize it in some way, and concentrate some of my energy into making it a better place. We can all do that with sharing what we have with others who don't of course, but I also feel I need to recognize the world suffering on a spiritual level through prayer and meditation, and on that wavelength, put some positive energy into the universe to help. Recently I found a meditation in the front of the Dharma Crafts catalog that comes to my house. (they have some really nice spiritual books for children in there, by the way) This is what it says,
A prayer for Peace
May all beings be peaceful
may all beings be happy
A prayer for healing
May all beings be safe
may all beings awaken to the light of their true nature
A prayer for Humanity
May all beings be free
I can do this. I don't need daily news bytes to do this.
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| | Posted 10/14/2006 5:26 AM - 4 views - 5 comments
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