Too Much Noise!

I sat down to write this morning and discovered that there is just so much going on. How can I choose “one” thing?

Then I noticed that the reason I couldn’t come up with one topic is maybe because there’s too much noise. I don’t mean that literally, I’m actually in a very quiet home here in Virginia Beach as long as the F18s aren’t training or doing any ops out of the Navy Base. We are right on the flight line for final approach and it can get a little noisy even though my son’s dog doesn’t even seem to notice it anymore.

What I mean by “too much noise” is that we have so much information coming at us nowadays I think I’ve maxed out. It may be time to unplug for a bit.

I do admit that I’m a news junkie. In the past we used to get 5 newspapers delivered to the radio station every day when I did the morning radio show. Now that everything is online I follow several papers, networks and reporters and check Twitter and Facebook often. Since I’ve been down south I’ve been trying to keep up with the news back home through the Standard Times, New Bedford Guide and whatever my friends post. I also watch the local and national news every night down here.

My latest “bad habit” is watching videos on Facebook. I have several that I follow and it seems even more get “recommended” to me. I call it a bad habit because once you start watching you can easily lose track of time.

The other night I went to bed around 10 p.m. and thought I would read for about an hour. I’ve discovered a new mystery writer, John Gilstrap, and I’m reading “Scott Free” right now. Welllllll…..wouldn’t you know I thought I would check out a few videos on Facebook before I opened the book and before I knew it, it was 11:00 p.m.! Now I could still read if I wanted to because I had nothing I had to wake up for the next day. It wasn’t like I had to take care of my grandson and had my 6:30 a.m. alarm set, but I was tired! And then, wouldn’t you know it, I couldn’t get to sleep because of that “screen time” and the fact that all these thoughts about the videos were swirling around in my head!

It’s too much noise!

Everywhere you look there’s a piece either for Trump or against Trump; Politicizing the “Corona Virus;” Is there really a virus or is it all a hoax? And the Democratic candidates: this one hates that one and Bloomberg’s trying to buy his way in.

Then there’s the Houston Astros players getting hit by pitches, and my favorite the week: Garth Brooks wears a “Sanders 20” shirt on stage in Detroit! How dare he be political? Just sing! Hello? Detroit? #20 was BARRY Sanders! NOT BERNIE! Barry thanked Garth on Twitter for the endorsement. Yeah. The football player.

So how much “noise” is there? According to a story in the New York Times (Yes. I follow them too), a market research firm estimates that a person living in a city 30 years ago saw up to 2,000 ad messages a day. Now it’s up to 5,000. And those are just ads. The average person gets or sends 94 text messages a day.

I was just thinking I should keep track of all the things I read about in one given day. I would probably get writer’s cramp just trying to keep up. How many pages would I fill with that list?

So maybe we could all use a day, or a week, where we unplug, chill out, or calm the noise. Take a walk, or a ride, or read that book….first. Of course then I would be worried about everything I missed, BUT, it might be worth it.