Don’t know about you, but the news lately is bringing me down even more than usual. Planes drop out of the sky, armed conflicts scar the globe in too many places, and our leaders play the foolish game of one-upmanship while neglecting the country's real problems.
Meanwhile, the media invests the same urgency to those calamities as it does to the love lives of sports stars and the size of the Kardassian posterior.
Don’t know about you, but the news lately is bringing me down even more than usual. Planes drop out of the sky, armed conflicts scar the globe in too many places, and our leaders play the foolish game of one-upmanship while neglecting the country's real problems.
Meanwhile, the media invests the same urgency to those calamities as it does to the love lives of sports stars and the size of the Kardassian posterior.
I think I need to find some perspective on the daily hullabaloo of existence, this is it. But how can one uncover that healthier outlook with so much nonsense oozing out of the multiple media portals surrounding us every day?
I am thinking that it's time to get out. This could mean “out of doors,” yes, but it also means getting out of the line of fire of all the meaningless crap with which we are bombarded.
You know what I mean. There is no such thing as “must-see TV,” nor are there YouTube videos that your life will be incomplete without. That list of “7 things successful athletes do every day” will give you no insight, nor will the photo album of “12 crazy cat beds.”
Think about it; watching minor luminaries in a supposed dance competition is a little ironic, given the probability that getting up and doing a little dancing yourself would be more fun. And, as Tom Petty recently pointed out, competing to become a music star via some desperate game show is, really, a little sad and a lot ridiculous.
My self-treatment plan? Go out and do something with other people, even if it’s only going to the movies. Better yet, I’ll take in a live theater performance, and marvel at the complex exercise of putting such a production on.
I’ll head out the door and walk. No, make that a hike. If I was in the South Bay, I’d, hoof it up to the top of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, look over the water, and look for Catalina. Or, stride up the incline of signal Hill, then look down over the sprawling metropolis of LA.
What I need is to focus my eyes on something higher and discover a sense of being in the bigger world, not engrossed in the small screen.
Maybe that fresh outlook will come from taking a quick day trip or by reading a book. Or I could find someone that has a baby and spend time soaking up a being who is not so bruised and jaded by living.
Why not join me this week? We’ll do it together: turn off our glowing screen and escape from the bottomless balderdash buffet shoveled at us from all sides by the media. Who’s ready to do a little living in the non-digital world?
Pat Grimes, a former South Bay resident, writes from Ypsilanti, Mich. He can be reached at pgwriter@inbox.com
