I've been thinking a lot about consensus reality versus actual reality these days. It's hard to know what to believe when we have so much information at our fingertips. It felt simpler when you could just pick up the New York Times (the "newspaper of record" - hah!) and figure, if you got through that, you had a pretty good idea what was going on.

Having to think for ourselves about everything that's going on is a massive cognitive burden. I think we've got to pick our causes and focus on what's important to us personally. Local causes and our personal careers/interests.

I know Tim Ferris (author of Four Hour Workweek) refuses to read the news. If it doesn't relate to his direct sphere of influence, he's not interested. And maybe there is some wisdom to that.