goodselfhelpstuff.com

Today (January 26th) is Australia Day and it is safe to assume that BBQ’s will be fired up and tins of beer cracked open over the length and breadth of this great Nation.

Australia Day is a public holiday (which is cause enough for celebration in itself) that actually commemorates the arrival of the first fleet of British convict ships at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the raising of the Union Jack to claim sovereignty over the eastern seaboard. This has been celebrated for a long time but it has periodically been called into question whether it is really the most appropriate event to be celebrating as it emphasizes British dominion, the penal colony past and primacy of the eastern states. All subjects which can be a bit touchy around these parts. You can read a potted history of it here.

Several ideas have been floated as alternative “Australia Days” but –this being Australia – no-one can agree on a suitable event. More radically, indigenous groups have been holding protests about what they term “Invasion Day” for some years now. The www.australiaday.org.au website suggests…

“When you’re sitting around the BBQ table this Australia Day, have a family dialogue about this and other topics – such as global warming and water/drought issues – that are relevant to our growing nation.”

I suspect may Australians will resist this suggestion and will be having a dialogue about other subjects instead. Research held in 2004 showed that 79% believed that the date should be left as it is and a further 6% were undecided so it looks like there will be no change anytime soon. Having said that, the debate about Australia Day rumbles on and the argument that it’s not really “about” anything inclusive is still made (unlike ANZAC Day which honours those who died in military service and is treated with the greatest respect).

I doubt if this debate generates a whole lot of interest in most Aussie households though as the prospect of a day off from work, some food, a few drinks and time spent with family & friends is enough for most. If people do stop to reflect on how lucky we are to be able to enjoy these simple pleasures and pull off that most difficult trick – to truly appreciate what we’ve got – then that’s good enough for me.

Like

Unlike

The purpose of this post is to discuss whether reading or watching the news is a useful exercise – should it be discouraged (as several self-help writers recommend) or does it promote an interest in activism/social awareness and therefore add to the “common good”? I will say upfront that whilst I have an opinion on this I certainly don’t have the definitive answer so I would welcome your points of view. In fact, whilst writing this I have already changed my mind back and forth a couple of times!

When I was nineteen years old I went to university to study for a degree in politics. Back then I was a voracious consumer of news – I used to watch it, read it argue about it and believed everyone had a “moral duty” to keep informed about what was going on in the world. Like several of the opinions I used to hold back then, this must have been quite tiresome for the people around me and if I lectured you on this point between the years of 1986 to 1989 then I apologize. By the time I finished that three year course my interest in politics had dwindled and my commitment to consuming the news was also waning, although I continued to watch the TV news in a casual way as many people do now.

A few years ago I felt I needed to do something with my life and although I wasn’t quite sure what it was, going back to University to do some further study seemed like a positive step. I enrolled in a course that was mainly concerned with the politics of development in Asia and began to be a big-time reader of online newspapers, journals and academic works all over again. I learnt a lot from doing that course but I also found that immersing myself in current affairs and the politics surrounding them really left me feeling quite irritated and depressed. So, on the intellectual level I was learning a lot but as far as my wellbeing was concerned I felt it was doing me no good at all.

Last year I took the decision to avoid reading or watching the news altogether. No more online newspapers, no breakfast TV, no radio news… the only exception is sports (and that can be depressing enough!). I’m not fanatical about news avoidance – I don’t run out of the room with my fingers in my ears if CNN appears on the TV – but I don’t seek it out either. How has this affected my life? I have to tell you that I feel far better now that I don’t have that steady diet of negativity anymore.

“News” is a fairly broad term; let’s break it down into two broad categories. Let’s call one category “human interest” and the one “political/economic”. As far as “human interest” type news is concerned I would happily avoid this for the rest of my life. Most of what passes for this type of news seems to be mostly fixated on crime or other means of damaging people (or animals) and the intent is to create a “shock, horror, drama” type reaction. There is something really soul-destroying about this and the emotional and sometimes ghoulish indulgence of it can be quite disturbing.

“Political/economic” news is a more complex issue. Whilst it can be just as depressing as any other form it could be argued that it is in your own personal self interest to keep an eye on what is going on; after all, you wouldn’t want to be depositing your life savings into Lehman Brothers bank on September 15th 2009 would you ? Also, many would question how can you play an active role in your community if you have no interest in politics or economics? If you are lucky enough to live in a democracy – how could you vote if you were a political illiterate? There are plenty of people who say that you DO have a duty to know what’s going on and that morally you can’t ignore what happens in the world just because it’s uncomfortable and it gets in the way of you pursuing your own goals. Could you ignore a September 11th because you were sitting on a bean-bag “following your bliss” on that day? Similarly, the presidential election between Obama and McCain could be hugely significant for your life but should you disregard it because the cynicism and insults that are part and parcel of an election campaign bring you down?

Firstly, the vast majority of “human interest” news is either informing you of tragic things that have already happened to people OR it’s about trivia such as the ephemeral lives & loves of celebrities. There is nothing you can DO about any of this – you cannot make violent crime “unhappen” or force people to be interested in more weighty issues than what’s going on in Hollywood. All you are doing is letting a stream of distressing or trivial information directly into your head (and remember that a significant part of your mind experiences this stuff as if it were really happening to you). Surely there is no moral obligation to do this? The only exception I can think of is perhaps news of a natural disaster somewhere might prompt people to offer practical or financial help. Like Haiti for example – and, yes – I have heard of this.

Secondly, (and this is the tricky one) – should you cut out the political/economic news? I have and I feel better for it but a big part of the reason for this is that I tended to get too personally invested in it. For example, many of the online newspapers today will run a story and then have a comments section underneath it (much like this blog) and the story selected to be commented on will be one likely to generate an argument. No matter what the article was actually about the opinions expressed below pretty soon resolve themselves into militantly for and against and an argument rages on, frequently about the types of people who have opinions like this! This is the “news” equivalent of a pub brawl – pretty soon you are going to dragged into it whether you like it or not. You started out by reading the newspaper and end up feeling like you have emerged from a particularly spiteful and bitter argument with people you don’t even know.

The famous Liberal thinker John Stuart Mill (who was nobody’s idea of a “Dr Feelgood”) said:

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.”

He may have a point but, overall, THIS pig is feeling pretty satisfied right now. How about you?

Like

Unlike

Thanks go to my brother for sending me a link to this great site – which somehow I have missed whilst trawling through the self-help universe. There is a wealth of great material on here covering a wide variety of subjects – some of it challenging and all (that I have watched so far) worth considering.

The clip I have highlighted here is Dan Gilbert talking about the human brain’s amazing ability to visualize and anticipate future experiences – and how it usually gets them wrong. This has fascinating implications on how “happy” or “unhappy” we feel.

Anyway, this is just a brief post from me as the clip speaks for itself and I have promised Mrs. Goodselfhelpstuff.com that I will help with the ironing….

Like

Unlike