December Rain — 14
One of the good things about friends is that you don’t have to do any preparation to spend time with them. One of the good things about the news is that it gives you something to talk about. You know, for example, my friends talk about young people dying in the gym because of the heart attack. It would be like, “young officer trainee dies of….”, “young woman college graduate dies …”, “young doctor dies while doing gym…” on random days. Of course, we end up in agreeing that we should be careful on our health and follow good health practices. You see, we take some lesson from others. Don’t we?
When we see the news about massive earth quack, we feel sorry for the thousands of people who lost their lives. When the video of flood running a riot somewhere in the world, sure we watch and talk about it. When the news flashes about a horrific accident that kills several people, we do talk. We talk about climate change, infrastructure, global landscapes or whatever we could pick based on the news content. Often, these discussions lead to follow-ups, reacting to what we’ve heard.
Of course, there are news bigger than these. There are news about the looming economic crisis. There are news about growing conflict between nations that goes on. There are news about wars and political turmoils.
One day, amidst causal chatter, we delved into news itself. We were talking about the fake news, exaggerated news. We were talking about news specifically designed to increase the viewers rating. Suddenly, I told my friends that I wanted to quit reading/watching the news. I explained how some news had become emotionally disturbing, and I needed an escape from it. I expressed sensing the underlying dishonesty everywhere. For instance, during times of war, leaders preach peace while profiting from weapon sales, or they condemn civilian casualties as if the war had to be done peacefully. They all make use of any economical, political benefits of directly/indirectly by supporting one country or multiple countries. I continued, mentioning that the patterns in news have remained almost the same since my childhood. With the advancement of news delivering mediums, disconnecting from news content has become increasingly difficult, haunting me at times. I voiced my fear that news could even change my identity and lead me belong to somewhere I never wished to be.
One of my friends responded: While there are so many ways to filter the news that you want to see, there is no single way to help you evade it completely. As long as there is a communication among species, no matter what the communication medium is, there is going to be a form of flow called news. It is there within your family circles, in your neighbourhood, in your work environment and so on. There are gossips and propagandas, there are facts and information. There are selfish acts. Dishonesty, betrayal or whatever way you want to call it, it is there in your day to day life and you are part of — YOU are part of it. There is no way to escape. You have to learn to filter the content and have to choose where to get attached and where not, the selective engagement.
It is not easy. Did he truly understand my struggle? I wasn’t sure. But his words resonated. Maybe, just maybe, I can navigate this for a while longer somehow.
