Any way to be optimistic these days without isolating?

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I'm not sure where I should post this, but I guess this area has enough visibility, right? If not, then maybe I'll rephrase/repost it later in PPR.

This is going to be a bit long, sorry about that, but it's really the one thing that's been eating me up for the last several years. You can take the last two paragraphs as a TL;DR if you prefer.

I see a lot of people here and elsewhere commenting that they are wary of the news because they are wary of the organizations that broadcast them. I have no particular beef with any major local news outlet that I have access to, but I've actually been seriously wary of the news for a few years now, for the simple reason that the news suck. And it just keeps going through endless cycles of "wow, this is really bad" to "wow, remember those days when it was only that bad instead?".

I haven't sat down to watch broadcast TV in ages, but sometimes I'll overhear something, or someone will tell me about it, and it's always something depressing. Covid sucks and all, but it's the "s**t happens" type of thing, and there's an end in sight for it. But there is no end in sight for the s**t that has been persistently being thrown at the fan for years now. Everything seems to indicate that the worst of it is yet to come, and it could be a while. Objectively speaking, things aren't particularly bad anyway, it's the enduring legacy of what's been happening that's really worrying. Any reversal back to collective sanity will most likely be an uphill battle. "We don't want to be the next Venezuela", they say. Well... this is how you get to be the next Venezuela.

I keep going through cycles of being more open to hearing about what's going on so I don't get too uninformed, and then switching back to just telling people to please not even tell me about it, because I don't even see the point in knowing it. I ask myself "am I actually better off knowing about any of this?", and the answer is usually a pretty clear "no". I've been telling my father again and again to stop reading political news and commentary, because it's clearly bad for his health, which isn't going great already, and he seems to agree with me. And the rest of the family seems to agree too. Even his doctor, apparently (and mine as well, for that matter). He's been watching Slo Mo Guys and playing Bejeweled instead lately.

All this to say... Is there any way to look positively at the news and developments going on in the outside world? Any way to think of my house as an actual physical space inside a larger geography and a larger society, without just getting downright depressed for it? Any way to look at the whole situation for what it really is and then honestly think to myself "don't worry, this is temporary"?

I'm lucky enough that I don't have to worry about my livelihood or about my future broadly (not for the foreseeable future, at least). And at the same time, I don't see any way whatsoever how I could help make any of that s**t go away. So I have the actual option of just blocking out the outside world and pretty much pretending it doesn't exist, and a natural inclination to do so. Should I, though? Is there maybe a better option? With some level of decrazyfication currently going on elsewhere (namely the US), I thought maybe some of you guys might have a better perspective on this than me.

That's what I did. I don't own a TV in my home and recently have stopped reading news sites. I only watch user content on YouTube that interests me.

I'm perfectly happy not knowing what goes on outside my home and my office at work.

This isolation does have some odd situations like the fact that I don't know any adverse weather forecasts and I was very late to find out about a coming snowstorm (granted, I don't really care, I park my car in the garage, and I start work late enough that the roads are always clear). So far the isolation hasn't really caught me in a bad jam.

I still hear some news from my parents when I visit them, but I see the news do make them agitated in a way that I am not.

Focus on caring about and for people around you instead of caring what's on the news. I found the isolation has made my relationships with some people stronger, as I have more attention to spend on them than the outside world.

It's not too bad. I'm not regretting.

Part of the problem for me is that this forum, for example, counts as "the outside world". These depressing things about society in general weren't on my mind before I started posting here again. Unless I can come up with some different way to approach things in my head, I don't think I can stay on any type of forum for very long. This website is "the news" to me right now. Choosing to "isolate from the outside world" effectively means quitting this forum altogether, again (the first time, 4-5 years ago, was also for the same reason). There was another forum where I used to hang out where politics was rarely ever mentioned, but it's been dead for years now.

I think there really is something to be gained from being able to talk to people from outside my tiny little bubble. For one thing, I get bored without intellectual stimulation. The world gets mentally claustrophobic if I go too long without learning or realizing something new (especially now that travel is out of the question). And I just plain like to talk anyway, for the fun of it. I guess this is the main reason why I posted this thread. I'm looking for compelling reasons why I should stay (or why I shouldn't leave), and how I could do that without doing harm to my mental health. Because it's not sustainable as it is right now.

I don't have the ability to see BS and other upsetting things plastered all over and just ignore it. I need to at least reach some kind of conclusion with myself about things before I can mentally push them away. I need to really know that it doesn't concern me, or doesn't concern me any longer. I need a satisfying response to the constant nagging feeling that I'm brushing aside something important that I should be confronting instead.

The fact that Nature Beyond Humanity exists is a great solace to me.

I swore to stay out of the news and the PPR sections of the forum and I definitely regret poking in there.

Aside from that, the forum is rather benign.

That's definitely a good thought to keep in mind. The happiest moments I've ever had were spent appreciating nature by myself, away from people.

For a while I dreamed of living in Finland. Nature is just as much part of the environment there as it is part of the culture. I loved how even the modest apartment where I stayed there was just a few steps from a walk in the woods. Everything was so calm. I still think I would love to live there, but the cost of living is too expensive, I'll never have the money for it. One day when I'm retired, I think I'll move to Uruguay. They don't have much in the way of "nature" there, but they're next door from Argentina, and they have legal marijuana.

It looks like air travel will be prohibitively expensive for the foreseeable future after the pandemic, but I guess maybe I could still go on a bus trip to Patagonia. I wanted to go see the solar eclipse there last December, but... that didn't happen, obviously...

Hm, maybe I've just been doing it wrong then. I guess part of the problem is that I get impatient for new stuff, and end up clicking the "View Posts Since Last Visit" link, and don't realize what I'm getting into. That's probably a mistake... Curiosity did kill the cat, or so I've been told.

So maybe I just need to focus on controlling myself and keeping my impatience/compulsion in check instead.

PPR is sort of a “lite” version of some of the nasty parts of Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Sort of a microcosm.

It can get nasty....but do remember that this is the Internet, and not real life.

Most of the time, people will not say the things that are said in PPR to people’s faces.

i just remember the expression, "opinions are like aholes, everybody's got one and some people are one."

*takes a bow*
Thank you for the compliment.

Many years ago I went down the Grand Canyon on a rubber raft for two weeks. I was so far from civilization, that I couldn't pick up any radio reception. None. The outside world didn't exist. On the trip I wondered what was happening. I was curious. I was drawn to any news from the outside world.

You must've been in shock to learn Gerald Ford was suddenly president.

1 Social isolating and social distancing when you can't is a really good idea at the time of the virus. And aspie friendly, I'm loving it.

2 I know it's UK based but I follow Covid Good News on Twitter. It gives science based reasons to be optimistic that we can beat/are beating this virus.

For eg: over 40% of UK adults now have a vaccine And most of them are the more vulnerable people or people working with them So chances are high that there will be increasingly fewer deaths as this goes on

3 Avoid doom scrolling online including on this forum. Can be a good idea to disengage from people with daft/anti-science opinions & avoid certain sub forums such as PPR.

That's true, and that thought was perfectly sufficient for me for some time. The real blow to me came when I realized that, statistically speaking, 85% of my neighbors had chosen the incarnation of hatred to lead the country, and it wasn't for lack of options. They simply flocked to him. Outwardly, the vast majority of the time you still couldn't (and can't) tell who was part of those 85% and who wasn't. On one hand, that's kinda nice, because you can still have normal and friendly interactions with people in everyday life. But on the other hand... it's depressing, and even kinda scary. You never know what's behind a seemingly friendly smile (and chances are it's not something good). You never know what could get it to come to the surface. That, to me, was effectively the death of society as I understood it.

A few years ago I went to Easter Island. I stayed there for a week, in the off-season. I remember following an old abandoned trail around a volcano, and then suddenly realizing there were probably no people at all in at least a one-kilometer radius around me. That made smile. And then I looked to the sea, and thought to myself "the next person in this direction is thousands of kilometers away". That made me smile even more. The giant stone heads were pretty cool and all, but that was the reason I was there. It was a very nice feeling.

I can't say I was any more curious than before about any news when I got home though.

i'm still amazed that the trumpies are out of power. that gives me a measure of optimism.