The endless stream of information being fed to us is overwhelming. New entertainment, narratives, and news stories are being uploaded at a rate that outpaces any hope of ever taking it all in. Up until recently the great limitation was the availability of information. However, now not the amount of information but the interpretation and packaging of that information is what ultimately determines how people consume the media and allow it to affect them. One of the problems now is that we can pick and choose. We can pick stories that confirm what we already believe instead of being confronted by opinions that differ from our own. We can pick content that entertains rather than informs. We can decide what we would like to know and can remain ignorant of inconvenient facts. With all of the information available to us today we absolutely should struggle with the issues facing our culture, mourn the loss experienced by those around the world, and plan wisely with how the earth is changing around us. However the opposite of this is also true. We have an endless supply of terrifying stories to choose from. There are continuous natural disasters, a constant threat of new wars, and uncertainty in the environment and the economy. One could easily sit at home, surf the web and repeat “this is bad” until one of those bad things hit close to home. Our responsibility is to engage with the serious issues of the day while maintaining our balance and perspective. Those who keep their critical minds and comical spirits through even the most troubling times are a benefit to themselves as well as to those around them. So while we do have a dictator gaining nuclear power, social unrest and discrimination at home, an endless salvo of hurricanes on our southern coast, famine in other continents, problems of addiction in our communities, on top of our own personal travails, nonetheless we must limit our stress to only those things in which we can affect change and allow the others to pass. This is not a call to ignorance or push away from unhappiness, rather a push toward change in a select number of instances instead of despair at the ocean of misfortune in the world. Start where you are, to do what you are able.
JR.Stanley 