William James: My experience is what I agree to attend to.
And what we attend to is the news. We might not want to, but we do. It’s always there, upfront or in the background, on tv, radio and the internet. A constantly updated concatenation of mini-dramas. We can choose not to attend to it – and that’s what I suggest we should do. But, you might say, we’re serious people! We owe it to the world to take an interest in what’s going on. Really? What are we going to do about any one of the world’s pathologies as featured hourly in the news? Let’s be honest: the news is a completely passive form of entertainment; there’s no need to leave the house, to talk to a real human, nor even to choose a tv channel; the news will find us unless we make a conscious, persistent effort not to let it.
It's not like the old days, when we worked long hours, and came home to a house with one or more kinfolk in it. In those days most of us lived with other people, and had more pressing concerns than news to occupy our minds. But in today’s atomised society, a too-high number of us will adopt the worldview of the news as our default.
And what a worldview it is: a ceaseless litany of horrors, cruelties and lies; of war, hatred, injustice, criminality and psychosis. An endless pageant of shysters, weirdoes and power-addled bores.
Why attend to it? Well, it’s there, it’s pervasice and it’s the easy option. More seriously, it allows us to feel less guilty about doing nothing. Because that’s what happens when an individual feels a lack of control over their circumstances, leading them to believe that their actions have no impact on the outcome. In that respect we’re no different from dogs which, when subjected to repeated and unavoidable electric shocks, and then given the opportunity to escape by jumping over a barrier, stay where they are, choosing to continue to suffer. It’s learned helplessness, and it’s drummed into us with every news headline. For those who live alone the danger is especially great: the helplessness carries over into the rest of our lives. We start to think that all people are like the egomaniacs, bootlickers and liars whom we see or hear about on the news, and that we can’t do anything to oppose them. We fail to see the possibilities that attending to the other realities present: the non-news realities; those formed by the people around us - or the people who could be around us if we gave up the news.
In neuroplasticity we trust
If we avoid the news, would we then be guilty of turning our back on reality? It’s true that what appears on our screens is a facet of reality, but it’s not the only one. Reality is far too rich and complex to be represented by news bulletins. Try it. If something’s important enough, you’ll hear about it anyway. Without the news, you’ll take your view of reality from what’s around you: the people you encounter every day, doing humdrum jobs, the volunteers, the families whose members talk to each other, the walks in the countryside that don’t end in tragedy. The daily interactions we have with people like ourselves who are lucky enough to live in a society where, for the most part, if you’re nice to people, they’ll be nice to you. That’s the reality we live in. If we can focus on it, not only can we enjoy it, but we help perpetuate it. How so? Our brains are plastic, in that they adapt constantly – even adult brains. Neuroplasticity means that the settings of our brains are heavily influenced by exposure, repetition and high emotion – as the news industry knows well. "Neurons that fire together wire together," so that the repeated firing of particular neurons strengthens the connections between them, forming and solidifying neural pathways. By shifting our perspective from the horror of the news, and taking an interest instead in all the ordinary and positive things in our lives, we create new neural pathways that make us happier. We prune the neural pathways that generate anxiety and fear, and strengthen those that brighten our outlook.
It's not just the news that keeps our anxiety levels high: the endless security warnings on the rail system and at airports; the inability even to discuss certain sensitive but important issues, and – a particular concern of mine - the emergency vehicle sirens that frequently and randomly shatter any remaining sense of tranquillity in our cities. With cars there days bristling with electronics, there must be less crude ways of telling them to get out of the way. But let’s start with news avoidance; it’s something each of us can choose to do, and the benefits are immediate.
© Ronnie Horesh, February 2024