The past 2 months have been very difficult weeks in the news. Between the Orlando massacre, the crazed truck driver in Nice who killed so many, the coup in Turkey, the election here in Australia, the Republican and Democratic conventions, the Brexit vote and change of Prime Ministers in the United Kingdom, it is enough to make your head spin. We have politicians getting elected on how much they can scare people. We have media outlets who are using crisis after crisis to garner ratings. All of the news seems bad, bad, bad.
What can one do in the midst of such a barrage of disaster stories? Well there are a few approaches. The first approach is to just adopt an attitude that things are going to hell in a handbasket approach. Things are just getting worse and worse and things were never so good as in the glory days. I have problems with this approach. First of all, the olden days were anything but glorious. There was no such things as human rights or labour rights. There were things such as slavery. Secondly, the world is going to hell in a handbasket approach fails to look at the good things that are happening right now. Yes there are many problems in the world right now, but people are still kind, do heroic deeds, go out of their way to help strangers, and make the world a better place to live. These good deeds may not get the same news coverage time, but they are still happen. Curmudgeons, who see the world through dark glasses and see the past as idyllic, miss the good of now and hope for the future.
A second approach might be to turn off all the news. We don't have to watch the news or read the papers anymore. We can, in this 500 channel universe, watch sitcoms or soap operas all day long. This is what I call the ostrich approach or the head in the sand approach. I have problems with this way of thinking as well. A strong part of my makeup means that I feel compassion for others. I want to cry when others cry. I ached when I heard about the devastating tsunami in 2004 or the horrible earthquake in Haiti in 2011. Turning off the news means that I won't be aware of the needs of my global brothers and sisters. So for me being an ostrich is not a good option.
In my life time many momentous things have happened, some good, some bad- the Viet Nam war, famine in India and Bangladesh, genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, wars in the Gulf States, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of Apartheid, and even a few Grey Cup wins for the Saskatchewan Roughriders (my Canadian Football team). But my grandfather in his 91 years in the planet faced many tumultuous and wonderful events as well- WWI and WWII, the great depression, women getting the vote, the Hindenberg, the Titanic, the flight of the Wright brothers, and the invention of antibiotics. I don't think his history is any less topsy turvy then mine, but the difference is that now I get to see it in my living room 24/7 and with constant commentary. History has its dull moments and times when everything happens all at once. But in 100 years from now, who knows what things history will remember. To some future curmudgeons in the year 2116, today may seem like a peaceful interlude when everything was wonderful. And I imagine that there will be future ostriches who just wish that the news of their day would just go away.
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