Relief

     To hell with the news.
     To hell with the street violence.
     To hell with the collapsing economy.
     To hell with all the corruption and deceit.
     To hell with the conflicts in the Middle East.
     To the deepest pit of hell with the political campaign!

     It’s just suffering piled upon suffering, brought to you in Technicolor^® by faceless drones under orders to transfix you with excruciating stories of things you can do nothing to allay. And it’s time to say enough!

     I say you’ve suffered enough. I say you deserve relief. And I strongly suggest that you not look outside yourself for your analgesic. Especially not to politics, politicians, or governments. They’re in on it up to their eyelashes, and you know it.

     You do realize those faceless drones are torturing you deliberately, don’t you? That there’s a method to their madness? That their masters have an agenda, and that the fulfillment of that agenda requires that you be kept in a perpetual condition of just barely subconscious terror?

     Give it a moment’s thought. Just a moment; more would run counter to my agenda for today.

     There’s a lot of pain in the world. Some of it is yours. And it’s an unpleasant fact of life that no one can bear your pain but you.

     Others might sympathize. Others will make helpful (?) suggestions. Others might even stick their oars into your pond to “help” you. It’s virtually guaranteed that those others, however well-meaning, can do nothing to relieve you of your sorrows. They might make them worse.

     The converse is equally, horrifyingly true.

     Of the eight billion (estimated) persons alive on Earth at this time, there might be half a dozen that you, personally, can help – assuming they want your help and will allow you to render it. You can do nothing for the others. They must bear their pain without your assistance.

     No, don’t send them money. It won’t reach them. You know it as well as I.

     So why are you so fixated on the news? Do you think reading about all the evil in the world, or (God help us both) writing about it, will somehow make it less? This technological miracle, this digital universe that interconnects us all, this Internet is the principal instrument of your torture… and you immerse yourself in it deliberately! Great God in heaven, why?

     It’s killing you. It’s reducing you to a bundle of overstressed nerves incapable of anything but suffering. Give it enough time, and it will finish the job.

     I haven’t told you anything you didn’t already know. Worse, I’m doing what I warned you about: I’m meddling in your agonies. It’s well-meaning, of course; given the relation between us, how could it be otherwise? Whither thou goest, so also do I.

     But I couldn’t sit idly by any longer. You awaken with pain. You carry it throughout your day. It pervades everything you think and say and do. At nightfall you strive to put it aside for a few hours of sleep… which you rarely ever get. And here you are, about to gulp down a fresh helping.

     Just stop. You were not meant to carry all the troubles of the world on your shoulders. That would break anyone. Even if you had the strength of a mighty host and a heart as large as all of Creation, you stooped and shriveled lump of walking, talking misery.

     Detach. Log off. Live quietly, for today at least. Read something uplifting. Pray. Maybe have some chocolate; that always helps. But for the love of God – for both our sakes! – for one day at least, don’t willingly go swimming in the sea of ordure we call “the news.”

     Seriously, Fran. Someone as bright as you has no excuse for not knowing better.