If only some of the news we've been hit with lately was fake.
Turn on any media device and there's been another shooting/murder/terrorist attack, or political foes or celebrities are feuding. Everybody's up in arms about one controversial tweet or another.
Log on to Facebook and somebody needs prayers because they're gravely ill or a loved one is sick or dying.
If you're like me, you're suffering from Bad News Overload right about now. It's a never-ending, real-life version of the ingredients in advertised books and movies: "Intrigue!" "Betrayal!" "Murder!" "Tragedy!" Sounds like a novel, without the "romance," "triumph" and "redemption" added.
My smartphone came with a News application. A while back, it seemed a good idea to turn on the alerts. (I keep my ringer turned down, so I hear buzzes rather than tones.) Now I'm not so sure about those alerts, which always seem to bear dismal news when I'm somewhere trying to have a good, or at least peaceful, time or trying to concentrate on the things that demand my attention. I was at a benefit when I got alerts about the bombing in Manchester; at another event when the alerts came in about the terrorist attacks in London. I was trying to beat deadlines at work when the app alerted me to another Orlando shooting. And so it has gone.
Just as I've absorbed the previous bit of senselessly tragic news and thought I could exhale, here comes more news that has left a death toll in its wake.
I've written before about how these days, which some look upon as the last days, we have to bear the cross of an unrelenting onslaught of stuff hitting the fan. Stuff hits the fan so much, it's a wonder the fan is still going.
I'd dialed back on my Facebook newsfeed-scrolling, partly because I have enough "friends" that said newsfeed contains a pretty steady diet of loved-one deaths. I tried fleeing to some of the other social-media outlets. Twitter? Bad news in 140 characters (or a few characters and a link.) Lately I've spent more time on Pinterest, but even here, one click on a suggested pin, and the suggested pins that come with it, can lead the viewer down a sad/dark road or two.
If you're like me, you may have found that shaking your head, praying or having a moment of silence, making a sympathetic social-media post, declaring one's self in solidarity with the suffering and then going to your team meeting or the grocery store or your child's/grandchild's dance recital makes you feel more and more like a fraud.
You wonder if you should just buy sympathy cards in a pack. Manufacture four or five statements to pick from to paste into the comments following a heartbreaking social-media post. You wonder if you should post anything happy or funny or silly in the midst of all the madness and sadness. You feel like a fraud for just going on and pretending things are normal. You wonder if all the mayhem is, indeed, the new normal. You wonder where the cute cat videos, the ALS Water Bucket Challenge, dabbing, Pokemon Go, people re-creating photos they took decades ago, have gone. Heck, you wish somebody would bring the Macarena back. Some days, you're tempted to hide under the bed. Or do the Mannequin Challenge and stay that way.
But you know that any decision to stop putting one foot in front of the other is not the answer. If you're a praying person, you know you better keep praying for others' protection, peace, sanity, salvation or enlightenment. You know that somebody, somewhere, somehow is depending on you to brighten their day or be their role model. You remember those adages that dictate "Be the change you want to see," and "If it has to be, it's up to me," so you decide to keep on keeping on ... hoping that -- despite how cray-cray things have gotten -- you set a good enough example that someone will be inspired to commit a "random act of kindness" or "senseless act of beauty."
And, you promise yourself yet again to stop looking at the news or the phone before going to bed, because you want to at least have a few sweet dreams.
Send good news here:
hwilliams@arkanasonline.com
Style on 06/11/2017