No news for me, please.

I grew up being taught that having general awareness and being up to date with current events was essential to your overall development as a member of society.

This sentiment stayed with me throughout my school life and into my early adulthood as well.

I was always reading or learning about whatever the current “problem” was. The thought process behind that was that even if some issue doesn’t affect me directly, it was my moral responsibility to know and in fact, learn about it. Ignorance was not just an immense amount of privilege but also a political statement in itself that I’m with the oppressor. “If you have something to say, silence is a lie”.

Every scam, every scandal, every crime, every protest, and every bill passed was my problem and learning and talking about it is how I fulfilled my responsibility as a “virtuous” citizen. In hindsight, social media was a big contributor to that fire as it gave me an outlet to broadcast my thoughts to the world (or, my subset of the world) which made me feel like a celebrity of sorts.

What do most celebrities do on social media? They virtue signal.

You’d be hard pressed to find an opinion on any current “news” on my social media because:

• I realised that virtue signalling is not a good long-term method of keeping a sane and open mind.

• I don’t consume news in the first place.

I have now put a wall of self-preservation between myself and the news mafia. The only way we make contact is if I open the door from inside and go out for a bit. The other way around is a straight no-no. When do I choose to go out? When something happens inside my wall and I need to know about it from the outside.

Do not read the newspapers, or follow the news in any way or form. To be convinced, try reading last years’ newspaper. It doesn’t mean ignore the news; it means that you go from the events to the news, not the other way around.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

This has made me a much happier, freer, open-minded and healthier human being. I don’t see the world with a shade of pessimism but instead, see reality for whatever it is. Good or bad might be subjective.

How do I form an educated opinion on a subject in this scenario? Well, I don’t and that’s a good thing. It makes me listen and observe more than I speak and it also humbles my mind because my opinion, whatever it may be, couldn’t matter any less.

What about ignorance being a political statement and a huge privilege? Well, a privilege it is and there’s no denying it. What has changed however is how I think about privilege now. If I have it and I don’t use it, then who’s going to?

Now, this is not an announcement to abandon empathy towards the people who suffer while we sit in AC rooms, it’s just a mental model that has worked for me to keep my sanity and mental health over the problems of the outer world. I used to feel guilty about the privilege that I have of my upbringing and quite frankly, the family and place I was born in. I recognise it and I’m increasingly grateful for it every day but I’m no longer guilty of it. We all have privileges in life and I encourage everyone to use theirs.

On ignorance being a political statement, I’ll quote Nassim Taleb again:

“I am, at the Fed level, libertarian;

at the state level, Republican;

at the local level, Democrat;

and at the family and friends level, a socialist.”