Life was so much easier when we felt we were at the end of history and the world could be predictably smooth sailing. But history is back and many of us are struggling with how to process the fast pace of events and discover alternate ways of visualizing our media habits.
Oliver Burkeman suggests another way: by focusing on what is directly in front of us. From the latest issue of The Imperfectionist:
But there’s one piece of advice I’m confident applies to basically everyone: as far as you can manage it, you should make sure your psychological centre of gravity is in your real and immediate world – the world of your family and friends and neighborhood, your work and your creative projects, as opposed to the world of presidencies and governments, social forces and global emergencies.
This will make you happier. It will make you more meaningfully productive. And to whatever extent it falls to you to be an active citizen – to be engaged in politics, say, or in otherwise addressing world events – it’ll make you better at that, too. There really is no downside.
How we can do this:
And, yes, returning your centre of gravity to your immediate world means doing all those things you already know you ought to be doing – removing news notifications from your phone; spending time in nature; considering a return to printed news, and so on. But it also means remembering that “the way you want the world to be” is something you can live, here and now, not just something for which you advocate or argue. Your immediate world isn’t only somewhere you come to recharge, before heading back to the arena. It is the arena.
I mean, step back for one moment and consider the absolute outrageousness of the idea that focusing on the concretely real in this way – on looking people in the eye or walking in the woods, on building organisations or solving problems, on bringing creative works into the world or paying attention to your kids – that any of this somehow automatically constitutes “retreating” or “disengaging” or “looking away” from reality! Only someone who had completely taken up residence inside the news could possibly believe that (which is presumably why it’s mainly political commentators who seem to do so).
If only the weather in Toronto wasn’t so miserable this time of year.
(Image courtesy of Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash)