- Idea to be interrogated: Selective ignorance might actually save your life.
- It is OK to care less.
- What matters most is to attend the things you can control/change/affect.
- The more you try to control the more miserable you become.
- What can I control? I can control me and me only.
- Which, OK yes, sure but: really think about that. Do I care enough about myself to actually focus my attention away from [whatever] and towards controlling me?
- In order to focus more towards what matters, it is necessary! crucial! to limit your exposure to unnecessary shit.
- [Cut to]: watching youtube videos about how to make my phone more dumb, which is definitely like trying to find a sponsor at the package store.
- But still, you delete the apps, turn off the notifications, grayscale the screen, etc etc.
- You do still have to have to have to have a phone though.
- Similarly: email. Curating your inbox is definitely a thing, but we still live in a society, so whatever.
- You can spend a lot of time trying to turn the email firehose off but I, also, on the other hand, absolutely refuse to be a person who feels stressed out about their email. Or feel really any kind of emotion whatsoever about email.
- Stop thinking of Knowing The News as some sort of important part of a living person’s routine. The news is not designed to help you!
- [my usual tinfoil hat stuff about how if the experience of linear time is a semi-fake idea anyway, you absolutely do not need to overly focus on what is “happening” “today.”]
- Basically what are the things that are going to matter (to you/me/the world) in 50 years?
- The point is to stop reflexively look at [news|phone|email|social|information|videos]
- Stop reflexively doing anything except breathing, really.
- Have fewer opinions, as a treat.
- You know what’s cooler than not having a hot take locked and loaded about every topic under the sun? Having absolutely no idea what anyone is even talking about.
- “Not caring about [bad thing] is a position of privilege.”
- A C T U A L L Y, how nice to have the time, attention, and mental health to worry and yell about things that do not desperately and directly affect you and your loved ones, today, right now.
- I constantly think about that scene from The Expanse where Chrisjen says: “You don’t keep up with current events, do you.” And Amos says: “Only the ones I can do something about.”
- Serenity prayer… honestly a stone cold classic for a reason.