So I went all week without looking at a single political blog. I gotta say, I can’t believe I did it.
No Talkingpointsmemo.com …
No Ezra Klein …
No Matthew Yglesias …
No Huffington Post …
No other blogs, really, except I looked at a few of my friends’ blogs that don’t really cover politics …
What have I learned? What are my thoughts and impressions?
1. I feel less stress. I know, from looking at headlines and listening to the radio, that this would have been an “A-1 Classic Freak-Out Week” for me, if I had read blogs all day: Swine flu goin’ buck wild; Specter switch-a-roo; Obama press conference; more torture this-n-thats; dropped spy charges against the AIPAC dudes — I would have been all over all of that if I was reading my blogs. (Especially Swine Flu; I would have gone berserk on that.) I feel less anxiety and stress about the world, which in the end is probably good, right?
2. I have no idea what’s going on, really. I mean, I understand that the world is teetering on the edge of a pandemic, and that Chrysler was forced to declare bankruptcy by Fiat(?), and that Obama had his 100-day anniversary, but that’s about all I know. When I hit the cocktail party circuit tonight, I’ll probably do more listening than talking … hmm, is that healthy? Listening to other people’s words, instead of trying to crush them in an avalanche of my own words? This may require further study …
3. Not reading blogs makes me more reliant on — AND more skeptical of — what I hear on the radio. This morning I was making some red-pepper dip and listening to Public Radio. I really felt like I had to listen close, because I wouldn’t be able to hit the blogs if I missed a story. On the other hand, the whole time I was thinking, “How will I understand the secret bias in this coverage without hitting up my favorite blogs?” So I kind of ignored everything I was hearing, even as I listened closely to it. Is that what Zen buddhism is like?
More thoughts and impressions later … for now, let me say: THERE IS A WORLD BEYOND BLOGS, WHO WOULDA-HAVE A-THUNK IT.