In Praise Of Slow News

I manage anxiety with information. "Oh, that? That's scary!" *runs to Twitter* like when I spent three days digging through conspiracy theories about the Nashville explosion because now my best friend lives there and it was close enough to wake her up. It probably would've been enough for me to just notice that it's terrifying to have your best friend able to hear an explosion. And to be fair, when it's your best friend, they see all the wild tweets you send them as "Hi I love you, I'm glad you're okay," anyway so it doesn't even work to block the vulnerability. Good talk.

When Boston shut down last spring, I immediately realized (like the rest of the world), wE dOn'T haVe eNouGh iNfOrmAtion. So I subscribed to my local newspaper. And, well, joke's on me, because I've spent the last year reading the paper almost every day, doing puzzles, not scrolling endlessly through my phone (except for the Nashville incident ahem), and slowing way down.

The newspaper tells you what happened. The internet tells you what happened and what might happen. I'm not sure I need that second part anymore. At least not right now.

Because it turns out that not knowing all about what could happen or the upside down and inside out of what did happen doesn't really give me more control over the situation. It just fills in some blanks that I might have if I think about it a whole bunch. But knowing that the paper will be here tomorrow lets me let them think about it a whole bunch. And I just get to work on today's puzzle until I finish. And tomorrow we'll get a new one.