I don’t need to know that

Much of our intellect is based on learning. Our exposure to new facts makes us smarter. That is the cultural accepted belief.

Barraged with information it may be difficult to decipher fact from fiction. Perhaps that is the message?

A few years ago after watching repetitive fodder, I decided to stop wasting my time and turned off the television.

I no longer needed to be glued to the screen watching smiling youthful faces spouting nascence or wondering who shot J. R.

Taking a step back from the normal routine makes one wonder why other people’s ideas fascinate us to the point where we will purchase giant projectile screens to watch ‘Upstairs/Downstairs’ revision to ‘Downton Abbey’ or the continuing carousal of doctor and cop shows?

Being a fan of news that informs me of current events, I wonder what appears on my screen every morning. I’ve declined the delivery of the local newspaper for the electronic presentation only to find it less interesting or informative. Social media announces the latest event faster without verification.

Our minds are flooded with remembrances and nonsense and confusion of what to remember and what to forget.

Some things we shed yesterday’s papers that become engrained in our minds without our permission.

Avoiding the useless rabble of useless content that neither educates nor informs is just waste and should only be discarded. Scrolling through the selected sites chosen for information input are easy to delete.

Filtering what is offensive or just focusing on what is important to listen and view to what is important to remember or what should be allowed as freedom of speech.

While all these tabloids titillate our interest to find out who is divorced or what some famous person is doing makes our mundane lives seem exciting by emulating them, buying their line of clothing, taking a once-in-a-lifetime cruise or a fine dinner of an overpriced pinot noir with Crème brûlée when your normal pallet is cheeseburgers and soda pop.

If your life is dull and boring, to envy the rich and famous is only a waste of time for they too will lose their attraction and fall by the wayside only to be replaced by another. If one learns to play the hand they are dealt, there may be less stress in the world.

Books reviews and NPR introduced me to literary and musical awakening without the time and effort to purchase the product, wade though hours to only find I didn’t like it. The same is true of movies. YouTube shows me the trailers and the best parts and I can make my own popcorn.

Then the ballistic onslaught of ‘questionable’ news that spreads like wild fire only to be confused with the reality that seems more like a fantasy; and the mind becomes filled with what should go out with the garbage Monday morning.

I’ll admit I’ve never been a fan of fantasy. I didn’t get hooked on comics and superheroes in my youth so I have no desire to see them on the big screen. I understand most of the back stories but for the most part they seem ridiculous. Now I appreciate the artwork but only a few can match ‘Little Nemo’.

Everything else (news, sports, documentaries, live action, etc.) is becoming entertainment sponsored by and we (the public) are supposed to adhere to the message like it was 1984. I personally reject that proposal and vie for the simple life.

I don’t need to know how many dead there are in that explosion for tomorrow there will be another and another. I don’t care about the continuing migration of the poor and hungry for wherever they go they will be turned away for another Exodus. I don’t know whom that actor from a movie I didn’t watch is to give a hoot about his break-up from somebody from a tabloid television binge I’ve never watched.

If all this lack of social knowledge makes me the wallflower at the cocktail party then so be it. If our conversation only references these elements without a personal reflection, I may yawn. Unfortunately my disinterest continues to your personal family information unless they are details that could become a novel.

Avoiding personal drama or observing it from afar makes life much easier to manage except for those dreams and they are my own demons.