The Doomsday Clock Announcement is happening on the 20th January. And, while I’m desperately curious to know how close to our demise we are, I’m going to give the announcement a miss.
We’re collecting world ending disasters
I find it impossible to get a grip on how fucked the world is. There isn’t an anchor from which to tether our worry or despair. Instead it feels like we’re collecting world ending disasters. It’s like I’m 6 again and I’m filling in an album that my grandmother ordered from an address I found on the back of a cereal box. But this time the stickers aren’t of 80’s rock bands or African birds of prey. They’re extinction level catastrophes. And the stickers aren’t on the inside lip of a cereal box. No, the disasters I collect are everywhere. It’s like a where’s Wally picture filled with Wallys, and I can’t keep up with everything that needs to go into the album. I think of it like a game of cataclysm bingo where the numbers, or in this case, end of the world scenarios just keep on coming; relentless.
And it wears me down, constantly trying to come to terms with the next world ending event to add to my collection. I ceaselessly wonder what future awaits my children. I worry for my daughter and my son and struggle to come to terms with the fact that I brought them into this world. A world that finds itself in an ocean of catastrophic dilemmas.
It doesn’t stop
I don’t know about you, but I feel I am constantly struggling to get air as tireless waves of by bad news push me down. As I said, bad news isn’t about finding Wally any more. Instead I feel like I’m seeing and meeting Wally wherever I go, and if it isn’t Wally it’s his fucking cousin, niece, sister, uncle. And I struggle to stop seeking out bad news. I’m a chronic current affairs scanner. We all are. We’ve even made up a term for it, ‘doom scrolling’. We go online and bounce from one negative piece of information to the next, and with each tap, click and swipe we grow more anxious. I grow more anxious. And I never did despair. I never believed that the world wouldn’t be better tomorrow than it is today. And now I don’t know so much anymore.
The way news was
Thing is when I was a kid, ‘news’ came to us (my family) from a handful of sources. And I remember when things were bad, we knew they were bad. We trusted the people telling us that things were scary. But it wasn’t ever so bad that we considered our futures wouldn’t be there, waiting for us. We lived through the Cold War, spending at least 10 minutes a month under our desks in our classroom as we prepared for nuclear war. But I don’t think us kids or our parents ever truly believed that anybody would launch a nuclear missile with a view to start a war that could lead to complete human extinction within hours of launch codes being dictated and buttons being pushed.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that the news was more trustworthy or that politicians were more dependable when I was a child. I think the factor that helped us believe that everything would be okay was that most people, politicians and journalists included, seemed reasonably sane. We instinctively knew that most people simply wanted better lives for themselves and those around them. Granted, sometimes the way some people went about improving things were dubious or ridiculous, but nobody was rolling the dice hoping for one outcome which potentially had a counterfactual result that saw millions of people dying. And that is what our reality feels like now. It’s like there’s a sliver of a chance that we might reach some glorious future but most of us fear that we are more likely to end up living ill, thirsty, sunburnt lives filled with misery and death.
Lives filled with misery and death
And this is my problem; I don’t know how near to that line of perpetual suffering we are. If I believe the newspapers the world is overrun with the potential of further pandemics, wars, crazy dictators, misogynistic politicians, psychopathic CEO’s and deranged global leaders.
So many Wallys.
Being informed
My parents watched the news, as the said; ‘to be informed, so that he knew what is going on in the world’. As a kid I didn’t have a clue what was going on in the world and I didn’t care. And it didn’t seem to impact me all that much. All I cared about were my friends, a girl called Sarah and my BMX bike.
And then I grew older and news, inexplicably, grew in importance in my life. And now, when I ask myself why I watch the news my answer is also; to be informed, to know what is going on in the world. However, I’ve come to understand that ‘informed’ isn’t an answer, it’s an excuse. It’s an excuse to continue binging on fear inducing news, current affairs programs, and commentary relating to the state of the world. And there is no benefit in knowing half the things I’ve read or consumed in the past 20 years. I know this because every time I read a newspaper that is older than a week I realise that what was considered news then had no bearing on my life whatsoever.
None at all.
I read the news to create the illusion that I was somehow in control of what was happening to me. Through knowing I feel I have things under control. And that makes catastrophic news addictive. It gives us a false sense of security.
If the past 14 years have taught me anything it’s that knowing, being informed is a frivolous quest. For me the quest was getting a false sense of control. For others it’s a quest to be fed opinions that help them fit in with their peers. And then there are those for whom it’s a form of distraction that is so powerful that they can’t look away.
What to do
My wife, Jane, started a ritual for our family several years ago that we practice around the dinner table. Every night each one of us has a turn to share what the best part of our day was. And while we haven’t discussed it explicitly, I think Jane and I both hope that this exercise will teach our kids to seek things to be grateful for and hopefully make them more aware of how they spend their days.
One random morning, about a month ago, my son jumped into bed with me. He’s five. He gave me a big cuddle, we had a chat about whatever was important to him at the time, I think we discussed his birthday and going to see his grandparents. And then, just before he flung himself off the bed and out of the bedroom door, he asked me, “was this the best part of your day, dad?” And him asking me if that was the best part of my day was the best part of my day, that day.
So, instead of collecting world ending catastrophes I’m collecting best parts of my day. Each night before I go to bed I write down three events where something worked out for me. And then I write down one thing that made that day different to any other day I’ve lived.
That’s my news.
And for that information that passes itself off as news; I’m going to try to read news that’s at least 5 days old (preferably more) and I will choose what is worth retaining. And I won’t watch the Doomsday Clock Announcement, mainly because I might be missing out on the best part of my day.