EverydayBliss: Saying No to Fear-Mongering Media

Bird Goddess by Marcy Hall
(to remind us of our own wings)

Listening to right now: the wind chimes out our front door.

Today's Happiness Formula: A reading and walking and tree and bird watching and yoga day.

It has been about two years since we've owned a television. Don't get me wrong -- I adore movies and science fiction television shows, and thanks to iTunes and our new widescreen iMac, we watch our share. But we don't have to put up with commercials and we don't have to be subjected to regular news breaks.

We also don't get a newspaper or any news magazines delivered to our home.

And yet, I am not an ignorant person; I know what is going on in the world -- or at least, what the media has decided I should know is going on in the world.

Even without TV, newspapers, or magazines, I know. Information of this sort seems to float through the air. Why do I need to invite it into my home, my sanctuary?

Especially when all it seems to do is invite in fear. The people I know who "keep up" with all the bad news appear more paralyzed than those who do not. They can spout off all sorts of awful facts but those facts don't change their lives.

So what is the point?

To be fearful. That seems to be the point, doesn't it?

Fear keeps us immobile. It keeps us turning to things like "retail therapy," just to feel better for an hour or so. We act indignant; we can argue and debate at parties; we appropriately sigh at the injustices. But all out of fear -- which we so rarely turn into courage through action.

Fear makes for small minds and small lives. Every dictator knows that fear is how you control the masses.

Great minds think through and beyond fear.

Yes, there is plenty to fear in this life -- plenty without going out and looking for more.

Too much information can be as dangerous as too little.

Knowing that there is a small village in some far off country suffering from an outbreak of some (now) rare communicable disease -- does this make you pull out your checkbook? Go there and help?

No. Because knowing there are people who are hungry in our own communities doesn't make most of us do a single thing differently.

And why? Because knowing too much makes it all feel like too much. Makes us feel powerless.

This is where "you can only change you" comes in.

But we don't even do that much. We just go along.

We have become so attached to our comfort that we have become complacent to the smallest of problems and cynical about the largest. We have lost or given away a large part of our own sense of power.

What happened to the genetic inclinations that led our ancestors to climb aboard boats having no clue where they would end up or if they would even survive?

It has been scared out of us. That's what.

Everywhere you turn there is a new enemy, gladly supplied by the perfectly coiffed TV announcer.

Cancer and other illnesses keep us afraid of our own bodies. Suddenly women's breasts are their enemies. Any little symptom is a reason for twenty expensive tests. We work jobs that we detest, that kill our very souls, so that we can have health insurance that will drop us if we do become very ill.

The idea of terrorism keeps us afraid of the other. We go around the world acting like bullies and then wonder why people don't like us and so we just hate them back.

A global food and fuel crisis keeps us afraid of the very planet that sustains us. And so we look for new ways to rape her, new ways to offend the very cycles of life.

But there have always been people who have risen above such opportunities for fear.

Anne Frank wrote in her diary, wrote of hope and love and beauty, regardless of the threat of death, literally outside her door.

Beethoven wrote some of his best music after becoming deaf -- he did not retreat into self-pity.

Federico Garcia Lorca wrote poetry and plays and prose in spite of the terror that was Franco. He wrote up until the very day he was driven out to a field and shot in the head. He may have been murdered, but he was never silenced.

Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Christ, the Dalai Lama -- all of them continued to spread their messages of love and tolerance and peace regardless of the possible consequences to themselves.

In my own home town, John Kanzius did not succumb to fear after being diagnosed with lymphoma -- no, instead, he set about to find a cure for cancer, and right now, he is raising money for human trials.

There is plenty to fear, yes, but why partake of it?

Say no. If you think you need to be "informed," why not go meet your neighbors and find out what they need? Or start right in your own home.

Get brave. Be courageous.

Turn off the TV, throw away the crap newspapers, burn the news magazines.

Opt out of the collective of fear.