I have gone through long periods where I have--either by negligence or deliberately--not read or even listened to the daily news. I know this can be unthinkable for some, and for others it is a lifestyle either by choice or inadvertantly.
Dr. Andrew Weil (or is it Wiel?) advises people that taking regular and long breaks from reading/listening/viewing the daily news is important for well-being. Perhaps we homo sapiens are just not cut out to handle reading about so many things that anger or upset us because many people feel powerless to effect change. Or perhaps some of us have become overwhelmed by our own lives and reading about these other events increases our feeling of helplessness. (But we all know that we still have to "live the change you want" paraphrasing Ghandi and that we are in some small way NOT powerless.)
The past few days I took a break from the news -- due to circumstances -- not really purposefully or deliberately. But today, I clicked on my online newspapers and read about several tragedies around our state, country, and world that happened over the past few days of which I was unaware until this morning. It seems that it hit me harder. How could all this have happened and I have not been thinking/praying about these things? Does it really matter whether I knew about these events closer to the time they were happening...or a few days later...or at all for that matter? Is ignorance irresponsible? Or is ignorance bliss?
I am definately still a seeker on this topic.
But I can tell you one thing for sure. Although weather-wise it is another beautiful day outside, I'm feeling a deep sadness today because I read the news. I'm greiving right along with the community in Winona where a student was found drown--presumably after binge drinking; for the families in Pennsylvania where little girls were gunned down by a troubled (but outwardly stable) man; for people dying in a war in Iraq.
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