Watching the news has become a rarity in my daily life. I was once eager to stay up to date on what was going on in the world. Any progress that was made, whether domestic or foreign, was truly fascinating to know. Being knowledgeable on worldly events only further strengthened my passion of traveling and learning. Things aren’t that simple anymore. Now all I see and know is destruction of our land, society and each other.
I’m not sure if staying ignorant to what is going on in the world is the best course of action. Should I stay away from everything that is going on out there so that I don’t feel so horrible in that moment? Is prolonging the truth from reaching me, of what our world has become, the only way?
I don’t know how to answer those questions. That is the frustrating part. I want to do something but feel stuck in a position of weakness. Watching the news or reading an article only pushes the truth on us. We immediately become aware of the privilege that we are accustomed to. Removing race, religion or sexuality for a moment, you must realize that we are privileged. For the simple fact that we aren’t in the news today. Our faces aren’t plastered on t.v. screens with somber voices speaking on the injustices we faced and how gofundme accounts have been set up in our name. This daily occurrence is something that has become so normalized that I would be more surprised if this didn’t happen.
We sit and listen to rape and abduction stories and feel sad for a moment and then move on to the next thing or completely bypass it all because it might bum us out too much. We have grown so accustomed to pain and suffering being a part of our daily lives that it doesn’t seem wrong to want to absorb it all and slowly grow ignorant.
But is that right? Should we all just live this way until it’s our turn to be on the news? It seems that has become the consensus. Being too involved only leads to heartbreak due to lack of improvement and support. Staying quiet and ignoring the outside world doesn’t help anyone and only furthers the progression of negativity that has plagued our world and in turn news outlets.
The easiest thing to do is to see the darkness in things. We all are guilty of that. Real strength comes from searching for the light that no one can see. Those stories and individuals are waiting to be heard and seen. Maybe if there were more of these stories instead of constant hate then things wouldn’t look so bleak. Having an equal amount of light and dark while reporting the news seems to be the only way of creating a progressive news source.
Asking for chaos to end is pointless. That isn’t what this is about. Allowing the negative aspects of our society to overrun every portion of news media creates more hate. If there was the possibility of being able to show just as much positivity then having hope for a better world wouldn’t seem so farfetched.
