You know that scene in The Matrix in which Cypher defects, stating bluntly, “Ignorance is bliss”?
It really is.
For years I was plugged in to the chatter of the world. I had to be, as part of my job was to read the news wires and siphon the important, discard the nonimportant. I was analytical about the number of deaths in Iraq vs. the day/week/month before. I knew which “talks” to take seriously. I could tell you whether a study was legit and worth putting on the front page of a newspaper.
I was in the know.
I was also miserable 90% of my workday.
I knew far too much about what was going on in the world, and it turned me into a bitter cynic. I was so jaded that I would think, “Only 3 deaths today, that’s a brief.” Or I would slog through yet another mouthpiece from Washington with vitriol rising in my throat like heartburn because I could see through all the spin.
In The Transcriptionist, Amy Rowland writes about the experience of a journalist in a way that felt so familiar to me.
It’s too difficult to eat the news with my ears every day. It leaves a residue. I have letters in my bloodstream, nut graphs in my gut, headlines around my heart. It usurps my soul.
It has been years since I’ve had the daily news cycle injected into my veins along with a side of cynicism. Working in the entertainment industry is something that suits me much better.
It’s not that I have turned a blind eye to the news; I am vaguely aware of what is going on around me. It would be irresponsible to live solely inside my own brain or inside the brain of the Hollywood beast (which, some people might joke, is as mushy as oatmeal).
But there really are too many bad things going on in the world. It makes sense that things that are bad for the world are bad for the human mind, especially if that mind is tuned in for eight hours each day as I once was.
I’m not sure what’s going on this summer, but I haven’t been this acutely aware and saddened by the news in years. Let me count the things that have seeped into my subconscious … I can pinpoint it down to the day the plane was shot down in the Ukraine (which so happens to be the day the TV in the newsroom that is 5 feet from my desk has been playing CNN around the clock). Since then: huge blowout in the Mideast, Ebola, ISIS gains in Iraq, Ferguson, it goes on and on.
It’s either been a ridiculously bad/scary/horrifying/terrible summer, or it could be the omnipresence of CNN at my workstation.
The latter is more likely.
I’m trying to turn away a little more, protect myself from the constant hum of negativity that radiates from news outlets. The young, idealistic me would have been aghast at this behavior. “Where is your sense of civic duty?” she would ask. “Don’t you think it’s your responsibility to kick back against injustices?”
The young me has some valid points, but I have seen how little gets accomplished by just ingesting the news and not being able to affect much change. Let’s be real. I’m not a politician, and I never will be (I can’t lie, for starters). I do not have connections with anyone making the rules. What I do have is my voice and my talents. So I write. I design. I parent. I take photos. I am charitable when possible. I sign petitions. I glance over the news, but I definitely think it’s worth tuning out sometimes.
To continue my (very loose) Matrix metaphor, maybe the trick isn’t to be ignorant of everything. Maybe you just have to know how to stop the bullets from hitting you.
Because, most days, I’m 90% happy.
So yes, selective ignorance is bliss.
