NO NEWS is good news

I just can't take the news anymore - probably not unlike many people, but the way it's so obviously forced upon us makes me nauseous. you really have to dig if you want some substance and to me, that's fucked up. everything in this world has to adapt to change and the news is not an exception to that rule. this age of social media is won and lost in 140 characters or less (am i selling twitter right now? fuck) so headlines matter. and leads matter and buzzwords and captions and placement and shares and clicks all matter. but content? not so much. because it's being decided for us what's important, we're not making our own decisions anymore. we're not willing to put in the effort to be informed so now we're just making fun of people in the news, like this fellow from Iowa, so we can feel better about ourselves and what's happened to us.

"Iowa man assaults wife with McDonald's sandwich because he doesn't like them, police say"

Who hasn't lost their temper at least once or twice in their life and thrown a sandwich at someone? Take that as a metaphor for whatever you'd like. I didn't click on the link so i don't know the extent to which this man assaulted his wife (okay, i did click on the link after writing that sentence. i still feel comfortable citing the story. we shall continue) and of course i don't condone domestic violence and it's a real shame i have to even say that, but come on. i didn't learn anything from that story about the mcchicken except that if this were 20 years ago, my dad shouting at the neighbors to keep their garbage cans out of our yard would've made national news.

everything is so sensationalized. ordinary things are being turned into extraordinary things because we're not capable of being extraordinary anymore? i don't believe that's true. we're just surrounded by meaningless information and i'm starting to realize that i'll never make it anywhere in the corporate world because i can't have a conversation about kim kardashian. i'm on facebook, that's true. and twitter. and it's hard to justify the shit talking i do about the former especially, but let me refer to one of my favorite lines that eyedea gave us: "i live in conflict and contradiction but it can be so beautiful when i don't reject what lies within." that goes deeper than social media, by the way.

i just started to get really sad reading the news. so i stopped. we live in a world that thrives on criticism and i don't want to read anyone's criticisms. for an industry with so much power, i'm disappointed that the major news media takes such an approach to reporting. everything is bad and everyone is doing whatever they're doing wrong. i don't believe that's true. although i'm being awfully critical right now, i am wont to be supportive. what's the harm in surveying the positive in a scenario and THEN the negative? i've never read the secret, but i believe in the power of positive thinking. i believe in karma. i believe that if you've got the ability to impact a person, you should try to impact them in a way that is beneficial to both you and them. this post is turning into something that's not about news and so maybe i'll end it now. bottom line: i've only got one go-to news source.