Extreme Input

Do you ever wish that at least for a while you could be oblivious? Ignorant to every disturbing detail of every wrong thing going on in the world?

Don't misunderstand. It's important to stay informed. Important to know about issues in our world and injustices so that we can do our part to make them right. We should be doing our part to make things right. And I am talking to myself here. I have got to start getting involved in real issues. I'm involved, but only in the fluff. I need to get involved in the trenches.

But do you ever feel like you need a little time, a break from knowing? A break from knowing exactly what is in every fast food burger you are eating? That maybe you don't need to know that your chance of a horrible disease is increased because of this or that every single day? That suddenly hearing about all the horrible ways that people are torturing each other, bullying each other, scamming each other, abusing each other, is not something you feel like you can handle while you are still in your pajamas working on your first caffeine jolt for the day?

The missing children, riots, abuse, cruelty, addiction, kidnappings, injustices, pain, political rhetoric, on and on and on.

Sometimes do you wish that you could simply be ignorant? Oblivious? Just for a while?

Never before has a generation been so "informed." We have more input than any other generation before us.

Are our psyches able to handle all of this misery and turmoil streaming into our brains constantly at a rapid pace? I'm not sure we were made to have constant input. Constant connection to everything.

Look at depression rates. Suicide. Psychiatric medication rates.

Is it possible that information overload, social media, knowledge overload is slowly killing us? And not only are we tolerating it, we are inviting it to kill us.

But what's the answer? We can't, and SHOULDN'T turn our back on injustices going on.

But what is it they always say about "doing something to make it better." That is the cure.

And maybe therein lies the problem. We aren't fighting back because we are frozen. Frozen by the input. Frozen because it never stops. There never seems to be a break where we can pause, pull up our boot straps, develop a plan, make a difference in the world.

Because as soon as we begin to soak in and process one emergency, yet another one is thrown at us, and another, and another.

We are never allowed to become truly passionate about one thing, because the second we begin to feel that itch to DO SOMETHING we are given another crisis, another itch, until we are so overloaded that we just sit there in a foggy haze trying to process one crisis after another, without ever actually taking action. Action that would make a difference and fill us up with purpose.

We just sit there in a fog until we finally feel overwhelmed so we shut it down, walk away, and block it out.

We hardly have time to "feel" one thing, before another thing is thrown at us.

No wonder so many of us are embracing the concept of minimalism. Less is more. Cutting back. Uncluttering. Because our minds and souls are cluttered.

We lack direction and focus because we are overwhelmed.

I honestly don't know what the answer is. But I do know that something has got to give. Something has to give so that we can enjoy, truly enjoy this life before us. Something needs to happen so that we don't feel overwhelmed and frozen, but fired up, hopeful, ready to change the world and make a difference in some way.

I'm not sure what the answer is. It can't be to turn off the TV, because we need to know things. It can't be to stop reading, because haven't we always known that knowledge is power?

Lately things seem even more overwhelming. The Ebola scare, Enterovirus 68, ISIS, on and on and on.

Extreme input is certainly making us more informed than we have ever been before, but it certainly doesn't seem to be doing much for our mental health.

I truly believe the stress placed on
parents today is unsurpassed. It's a technologically savvy, information rich, brave new world that we have been thrown into, but none of us ever got the instruction manual.

We are the lab rats. We are the test dummies.

If you are like me, you don't normally sit around and fret over one thing. I don't sit on my couch and stew over Ebola. It's more of a slow burn. You slowly but surely become overloaded until you find yourself in a funk. If someone asks why you are blah, you can't really even pinpoint it. You may not consciously even know.

I truly think that all the negativity on the news, all the evil in the world, the corruption, social media, etc. I think it's truly affecting us in more negative ways than we can even imagine.

What do you think the answers are?