I’ve tagged this post under Politics, which always feels a bit like I’m in someone else’s territory. Dan was the one who did Politics posts – and who is much more informed about what’s happening in the world.
I used to have a little bit of a newspaper reading habit, back in the days of office work – but I can tell you that the key interest was always in the supplements. The light relief. (There was some fairly serious crossword rivalry too, as I recall.)
So I’m now in the category of people who get their news via Facebook comments from other people. (Or occasionally a quick flick through a copy of Metro, on the bus.) For someone who considers themselves an internationalist, it doesn’t seem quite right.
It is far easier to respond to the rest of what’s happening in the world when you are not a parent. Once you are, there’s only so many demands on your emotional reserves. There’s a tension between your focus at home – and that on the outside world.
So I don’t do a lot of keeping up with the news, I confess – but it does mean I have the resources to focus on peace in our own small empire at home. (And there are days when it seems like UN peacekeeping forces should also be on standby for parents.)
But I gain perspective in a different way now. I see how others respond to world events – through Facebook, a bit, but also through reading other people’s blogs. I don’t just get my take – I get theirs. Not just the info – the emotional element.
America was pretty shaken up in the last few months with the school shooting in Newton, Connecticut. Start reading a few blogs, particularly blogs of parents in the US, and you get the true impact.
So yesterday there was another impact to deal with – the series of bombs going off at the Boston Marathon. Â I had my own responses to that, partly with family not far away from there. Today, my reaction changed again – with reading the response Stateside.
Sometimes we are touched emotionally, when we have got all too used to blocking out the emotional aspects of the news. That’s a good thing.
And sometimes we are reminded of better responses – not just disbelief, or anger, or denial, but caring. There’s a great one here, from Lisa-Jo Baker.
Or another on Facebook, reminding us that when there are ‘scary events’, there are also helpers. People who are working hard to support, to care, to restore.
It reminds me that what we see on the news is limited. Our responses to events are affected by so many other factors: our proximity, our history – our memories.
I am thinking of people in Boston today. And I am grateful to be finding a different way to take in the news.
It’s not Politics with a capital P. But it is people. And news is really all about people, in the end.
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Today’s writing – a rather melancholy theme, and an attempt at a villanelle poem for the first time.