In response to Luigi's Morning Mail

By Caldwell

Fri, 29 Aug 2025
  • 137 reads
12 comments
 

I want good news, but not the kind doled out like cute puppies to blot out massacres, sunsets to obscure famine. No. That’s comfort served not as truth but as distraction, a pacifier.

And yet the other extreme is no better: the endless scroll of suffering that flattens every crisis into another item in the feed. My heart insists I should not turn away, that to remain human means to keep watch, to let the grief of others have some place in me. But my mind rebels: how much can one person hold before witness turns into paralysis, before attention becomes nothing more than voyeurism dressed up as virtue?

The simplest solution might be to step away from the screen, from the news, from the constant drone of crisis and sorrow. To step outside into the fresh air. The night sky waits, patient, unspooling its impossible fabric of stars. No commentary, no panel of experts to interpret the silence. Sheer vastness, the cold glitter that could make you weep because it reminds you how fragile, improbable, and beautiful we are. And in that infinitude, the headlines shrink. They become only one narrow register of what it means to be alive.

Certificate U
Non-fiction
Short Prose
Spiritual
Philosophy
Opinion

Comments

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

It's called 'the overwhelm' apparently, and your solution is a very good suggestion. I think it's important to stay informed, know what's happening and do and say what I can, but it's just as important, as you say, to step outside

 

Submitted by Tom Brown on

The main purpose these days of "The News" is for entertainment. Anything goes. Your approach sounds best "the serenity to accept the things you cannot change".

All the best! Tom

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Hello, Christopher. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am a grumpy old man of 90 years of age who occasionally likes to grumble about the state of the world and  - believe you me – there is plenty to grumble about.
I imagine that in the wake of my recent piece, Morning Mail, some readers may ask, what's the old fool ranting about? Our esteemed colleague Claudine Lazar, also known as 'insertponceyfrenchnamehere', hit the nail on the head when she mentioned the word 'overwhelm'. It is about the saturation of bad news. Of course we want good news and not just platitudes to hide the harsh realities but it is wishful thinking because the press and the media thrive on bad news. Events are reported and analysed ad nauseam, sometimes with slanted opinions depending on one's favourite newspaper or news programme. I belong to the make love, not war generation but see very little of the former and too much of the latter.

Best wishes, Luigi

P.S. By the way your response has boosted the reads of my piece. Thanks.

 

Submitted by Caldwell on

I most certainly didn't wonder - what's this old fool ranting about. I am totally on your side. I think I was actually responding to a comment under your piece that asked why can't we hear more 'good' news? It got me thinking about the counterbalance and how good news is possibly not the solution - after all, it's just MORE news, more information, possibly more propaganda, and all adding to the overload. 

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

You have interpreted my reasoning 100% correctly, Christopher, and thank you for confirming it.

Best wishes, Luigi

 

Submitted by w.w.j.abercrombie on

I think your piece is so elegantly written, if you aren't already a journalist I think you should be one.

I fear it is becoming harder and harder to distinguish real news from drama, and the advent of AI will only serve to blur the line more.

In drama, serial killers, domestic abusers, con men (and women) and thoroughly nasty criminals of every type seem to fascinate us, perhaps eliciting an atavistic response because we want to know all about that which might threaten us. But now the news itself is competing with, and presented as, drama, it has become overwhelming (as already said above) and instead of stirring us in to action, it is numbing us, we are slowly becoming inured to the awful state of the world because it is almost indistinguishable from the latest Avengers movie.  Just the other day I watched a news segment about the conflict in Gaza only to have it interrupted by an advert for teeth whitening. Bizarre. 

Enjoyed your insights very much.

Nick

 

Submitted by Caldwell on

High praise indeed! I am not a journalist and never have been, though if you keep talking like that, perhaps I will be one day. 

I actually liked your original “we” clarification — it landed for me. What struck me was the contrast with the “Royal we”: on the surface, they seem different, but perhaps both end up meaning “the pejorative we” — that average, unquestioning, fiercely defensive crowd we invoke when talking about cultural habits. And judging by the popularity of gruesome TV, there is a genuine appetite for violence-as-entertainment, which makes the line between news, documentaries, and gory thrillers feel uncomfortably thin.

I get the point about keeping politics off this site, but since it came up: I’ve always found it amusing that England’s patron saint, whose cross gets painted on every available roundabout, was half Turkish, half Palestinian, and became a saint for refusing to renounce his religion in a place where it wasn’t the accepted one.

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Nick. I don't wish to be disrepectful but I am a bit confused. You have said: "we are slowly becoming inured to the awful state of the world because it is almost indistinguishable from the latest Avengers movie."  Perfectly understandeble but then, later on, you add the following statemenr:
" When I say 'we' I refer to the 'we' thats paints red crosses on roundabouts of course."
Do you mean to say that it is only those who paint red crosses on roundabouts that are inured to the awful state of the world?

Regards, Luigi

 

Submitted by w.w.j.abercrombie on

Hi Luigi, it was, admittedly, a flippant statement. Perhaps this isn't the right forum for political debate but my point (not well made) was that it might be those most easily influenced by social media and tabloid sensationalism that are most likely to become inured to the condition of the world outside these islands.

I've edited the post now.

Nick

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Thanks for the clarification, Nick.

Best wishes, Luigi

 

Submitted by David Kirtley on

It is almost as if we know too much, can see it in the distance, but we don't want to know. There is too much of it! 

A nice piece, very well expressing what many of us are feeling!

 

Submitted by Caldwell on

Thank you for your kind words, David.