The distraught friend

 I got home from grocery shopping yesterday as the news of the January 6 attempted insurrection in Washington, D.C., was breaking. Not long after I got home, a friend called. Like me, she doesn't have cable. Unlike me, she was watching CNN feed online. Also unlike me, she had worked herself into a frenzy about what she was seeing.

Sample dialog:

My friend: Oh look! There's another of those assholes wearing a tri-corner hat!

Me: You know, not that I'd ever wear one, but those are pretty cool hats. 

It went on for several minutes like that. I was unable to match her anger and level of agitation and not about to pretend to do so. I've never been like that, even when I was college age. It's not that I don't care, I do. I've missed voting just once in my life since 1976 and that was because I was living overseas. (It would've been hard to vote as I'd left the state I'd lived in for good and hadn't moved into another one. Also, it was obvious that the election would be one-sided: George H.W. Bush vs. Micheal Dukakis.) I've donated to politicians I'm in favor of, though not a lot as I really don't think it should be about money, though it is.

I have a few friends who need to disengage from the media flow more often than they do. They need to ask themselves what good it does for them to get as upset as they do. The friend who called me yesterday, for example, has a bad heart that had her hospitalized for two weeks a year ago and it's still not great. She lives alone and hasn't left her apartment since March of last year due to her concerns over the virus. Why do people let themselves thrive on anger? It's as bad for the psyche as spending hours a day watching pornography is for sexual concepts and feelings, or gambling is for managing personal finances. 

You have a choice when it comes to how much time you spend engaging with current events. Too little is bad, but so is too much. There is more of value in the world other than knowing what's going on, and I say this having been a journalist at one time. Find an old book, a novel, and read it. It doesn't have to be some dumb escapist book, though it can be. Just something about a different place or time than our own, something that transports you from now and here. Turn your stupid phone off and put it in a drawer or a room where you won't see it, and vow not to look at it for at least an hour. You'll live, I promise. And if you doze off while reading in a comfortable chair, great!