- Makes Me More Negative: Thia is the most important reason for me to avoid watching news videos.
Most of the time, after I have finished watching the news on TV, I find myself more scared, untrustful to other people, and frustrated to see the ways things are going around me. Most of the time, the news would keep highlighting accidents, criminal activities, shootings, police chases (more common in LA and USA I guess), natural calamities, and similar things. - The World has good and bad all the time. It is not new:
There are good fellows and bad fellows in the world, there are good things and bad things. This is there from Day 1 of human existence. We humans have always tried to eliminate the bad and create a good world but we have never been able to achieve that. (I think the creation and the destruction, Lord Brahma and Lord Shiva, the good and the bad, is necessary for the world to run on autopilot- a topic for the next time I guess). Now by highlighting, and hammering, the bad more than the good out there, we are making society a bit more worse in my opinion. At the end of consuming some news, if I am angry or frustrated, it is most likely going to get reflected on the people I interact with. A person shares and spreads what he has. If I am happy, I am going to make the people I meet a bit happier. If the news had made me angry, it is likely to be reflected in my behavior. - Corrupt Media/ Vested Interests: There are times when there is some vested interest that is trying to 'profit' from us in some news. Profit can be in money, or it could be in terms of influencing our thinking and hence behavior. In short, their times when someone's selfish interests want to 'manipulate' us in a certain way for their gains- monetary, political, or religious.
I am generally surprised by some uniform opinions in the US about some leaders in other countries who may actually be liked by their citizens. For most Americans, Kim Jong-un is a joker, Fidel Castro is a danger. Every American was led to believe that Saddam had chemical weapons and weapons for mass destruction though none were ever found, Putin is a villain and PM Narendra Modi has always carried the impression of a Hindu fundamentalist. Most news in the USA about Modi will somehow refer to the world Hindu somewhere. Having grown up in Ahmedabad, I have been through communal riots a few times a year but they are no more. It was only during Modi's regime they stopped. and if I am not wrong, more Muslims voted for him in Gujarat elections than those voted against him when he was a CM of Gujarat. - No need for me to take a side, or pass a judgment:
Here is a classic case. President Trump. I know he won in the 2016 elections so naturally there are people who like him. He lost in 2020 but still, 45% of voters liked him! Being in California, most of the news would highlight how stupid, or a danger he has been to the world. I always wondered that there must be something about him that some people see in him, which I fail to notice.
Anyway, at one point, I decided not to take any side. My job was to vote and I did. I don't necessarily have to hate or love him. I can accept him like any individual, who has something good and something bad or weird. I don't need to analyze him to pass some judgment. Even if I do my perfect analysis and give a verdict, all that is worth is one vote in reality ;) I can take him as what he is. The same is true about most people or personalities out there. I don't have to put everyone in a love bucket or a hate bucket. I carry an enormously large third bucket which I fondly call as an "IDC" "I Don't Care" bucket.
I guess I am more like, St Kabir here:
कबीरा खड़ा बाज़ार में, मांगे सबकी खैर!
ना काहू से दोस्ती, न काहू से बैर!!
By starting to avoid analyzing and investigating most of the leaders, I save myself many hours of time and some mental overhead. Also, most of the news we are fed has some bias of the media, newsreader/ writer, or channel in it. So the evidence is most of the time corrupt, unreliable for me to do any fair investigation, and pass my 2 cents worth judgment ;) - Focus on the right world: There is the world out there as we all know it, and there is my world. That world has 195 countries and around 7.8 billion people, Something is always going on in some part of that world. My world is the world that I live in, you live in, has people whose actions touch me, has matters that matter to me, and that is the world that I can contribute or influence with my limited time, skills, and resources. I simply don't have the luxury of time, or the interest or willingness, in following things that are happening in some particular country or a place. or with a person.
So this is my jugaad with reference to the news: I don't waste time and energy in knowing things that really don't matter in my world.
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