The Less You Watch The News, The More You Get To Understand The World
Events that happen around us do not represent reality—unless they are experienced from our unique perspective first hand. News serve as an echo to what most of us understand as truth. We hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. Some people made sure to serve us the version of the world we crave because this is exactly what we ordered.
Following the news is much like an addiction. This is true for any domain of life whether the news are about crypto, fashion, sports, politics or anything in between. News Sites do not sell “news” but rather our cravings about the state of the world. On our end we only receive a repackaged opinion of someone about the world. An opinion that stimulates our passions and justifies our fears. This is why we rarely hear anything good. News sites make sure to tell us that the world sucks so it's ok if we suck too. Hollywood works much the same way.
One would think that exposing oneself to more news sites would solve the problem. This is not true. Ingesting more and more material doesn’t solve the problem, but rather aggravates it. Information is not always good as one would think. Information creates noise and clutter in regards to what is really going around us. Our brain can only handle that much. Instead of relieving it we stuff it even more.
If that was not enough, most news tanks have vested financial and political interests. If for example an event occurs, one site will present the situation different than another. The event might be cut and clear such as “man murders woman”. Who that man is, why he did it, what impact this has to society and other speculative projections, are up to the news site to imprint that kind of information in our mind. At the end of the day reality gets distorted, completely forgetting that the information we received was not news at all ot begin with. Murder is something that happens all around us all the time. We oversee why is it still happening because we are too busy blaming each other for it's cause.
The way we perceive information begins with history books. It has been said that the entire history of the world can fit into 100 pages if one is laconic enough. Nonetheless, we get millions of pages of historical “facts”, most of them of which happen to be glorified myths and hearsay. We add clutter in order to forget why war is happening and rather focus on who we should be attacking. We then use that poisoned information as a gateway to understand more news, more information, more clutter. Although the truth is always shades of gray more clutter pushes us into black and white zones. We go for the news and we end up with propaganda.
Less is more. If one needs to understand the world around them one only needs to look at basic truths that govern our world. War is war no matter what period in history we examine. Violence breeds violence no matter how we apply our political agenda. Love is selfish no matter how we like to believe we can love everyone the same. There are thousands of religions around us and no matter how much we study and excuse our own it won’t make it more true. We group into ideologies because we are still bound from our primitive instincts.
These are the news. These basic realities are the things we need to accept in order to understand the world. The more we need to excuse the world around us through facts, interpretations and future projections the more we get lost.
If you want to understand the world try not to watch the news for one month. Instead try to understand what is going on by listening to people around you. Try to see their emotional response and how they try to explain important things to you. If you don’t hear about something, it most likely wasn’t important enough. If they are panicking about it, there is probably not much you can do about it.
In all likelihood, no piece of “news” will ever affect you. News are not really new to begin with.
Couldn't agree more. I haven't watched an actual news program in probably over a year and I honestly don't feel like I've missed out on anything important.
I have a feedly account, and I was following it for a while, but I had a similar realisation about it - that it was not adding anything to my wisdom. This is more important than knowing what the general opinion is about current events.
Frankly I couldn't give a damn about the moribund spasms of the Western Elites, in particular. War with Russia. Kanyeshna! That is 'new'. Once I found Steem, I lost interest in other cryptos as well. It's the best and will gobble up so many others in its SteemRoll to world domination.
Steem users post more interesting stuff, and they are motivated towards quality posting. It's no coincidence that most of the news on Steem is actually people telling the stories of their own lives. This is more important information than the machinations and scandals of a soon to be irrelevant ruling class.
By the way, your signature image is great. Blind leading the blind :)
"It's no coincidence that most of the news on Steem is actually people telling the stories of their own lives. This is more important information than the machinations and scandals of a soon to be irrelevant ruling class."
Very excellent. This is a new thought to me in the battle against MSM. Brilliant concept so simply.
The learning potential too, of following people's lives and their stories of their TRUE histories. Their inspirations. There is a lot to be learned from your neighbor. Only a fool knows best and the market of STEEM crushes the arrogant fool. The content on STEEM has valuable information from primary sources.
People travel, they cook, have different hobbies, but most importantly THEY LIVE. This is were knowledge is gained. From experience. These experiences are shared via STEEM users. This is primary information you will NEVER receive from State Sanctioned Curriculum.
There is a lot to learn from the users, whom are complete strangers to me. The content is important. There is value in them: learning. Advancing your human condition through learning. You will not find any VALUE on the MSM social media sites and your friends there.
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@lok1
Indeed, thank you for your input. I too stopped interacting with the rest of social media. I actually stopped watching the news years ago. I ended up knowing more about the world than I ever did before.
I don't like the word "follower" so i thought to give it a twist. The main problem in this world are the followers or otherwise known as "groupies"
Yeah, I didn't think about that. You should write a tagline to add to it that plays that up. Groupie is a great word to point out. So sleazy.
Good advice. I stopped watching mainstream media a long time ago, even prior to the internet. It's easy to read in between the lines, but I felt insulted by the crap that they served up every day.
Yep, I don't follow any news sites/shows anymore either. If something big happens I will hear about it from @sean-king. I get my news from listening to people around me, stuff people are talking about on Facebook and here.
Brilliant post. So many valuable points. I rarely watch or read the news anymore because it just leads to fear and stress. Plus it never really changes people keep repeating the same cycles. As you said:
Also I just noticed the new follow symbol art - that deserves an upvote on it's own!
@theycryptofiend
I have had the follow button for a while now
Post included in: Steemprentice spotlight #3 - Steemit Mentors and Mentees helping everyone steem better!
Ha funny picture down at the bottom.
Spot on! Watch for the MSM and their propaganda. H
Stubbing your toe is accidental. Historical events have all been planned and calculated, then played out.
The record of so becomes history. The victors always write "History".
Yes, spot on! I stopped watching 2 years ago and I have never been happier;)