The News or New News
I have been watching a new HBO series this summer called The Newsroom. If you can, go check it out. It is another great Aaron Sorkin tale of human drama with lots of very witty fast walking and talking all happening at the same time. I know it is not always true to life, but I do love the pace in which it all happens. It has been a juicy dose of entertainment for me these past two weeks at home. But I digress (how Aaron Sorkin of me.)
What this show has awakened in me is much awareness of my relationship to “the” news as it happens in my world around me. Do I just react out of a habit? Do I see it as true? Do I simply see it for what it is? What does “the” news mean to me or about me? There are many questions for me personally as I watch this show and see how they spin the news (of course they do!)
And on a bigger scale, there are many questions for all of us with regard to our relationship to “the” news. This week I received some news in our life (nothing too dramatic), that activated in me my own awareness of how I respond to “the” news. It first sent me to panic, then to fear and then it even activated a major shame attack spiral (don’t you just hate self shame spirals). I went to all these places and then finally landed on the final thought of “I get to choose my relationship to this news.” Now I know that sounds obvious, but I am not sure it is very obvious in our culture. We are simply news responders rather than “new” news creators. What I mean by that is “what is the ‘new’ news I want to create from ‘the’ news I just received?” What a much more powerful question to be in than to simply be a reactor to “the” news as it comes at me. And in this situation it has activated a plethora of new insights and awarenesses of where I was asleep in my life.
I was woken up by this news — and thank God (or whatever Higher Power you may have for yourself.) Now I get to create “new” news from “the” news I received this week. And what I know at an even deeper level is that I co-created “the” news for myself so I would be woken up to go create some “new” news for my life, because it it simply time for some “new” news for my life. So I ask you, are you simply reacting to “the” news coming at you today or are you creating “new” news for yourself and your life? I would love to hear your thoughts on this simple yet freeing perspective shift. Thanks for reading….more to come…. as I always say!
Best-Rick T.
3 Comments
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Adora English
Rick,
What a great post, and timely for all going on in our world today. Thanks for the perspective it gave to me today. I needed that reminder.
Big gratitude,
Adora.
Cynthia Loy Darst
Nice piece, Rick! We are watching The Newroom, too, and loving it.
I appreciate the questions that it simulates, and where you are pointing.
It makes me wonder just how much of a “puppet on a string” we are as human beings.
My reaction is to not pay much attention to news because I don’t want to be that puppet….but then, I’m pretty sure that has me also tune out things that I need to know. Dang.
Debby Rauch Lissaur
You are bringing up such an important point. We not only accept automatically “the news” as true and react to it, we forget that “the news” (no matter which one you listen to (right or left wing or somewhere in between) generally comes from a for-profit entity. And that entity has at least 1 agenda (usually more), which is to get high ratings. Because the ratings translate to more money from paying advertisers, which sustains their ability to produce the news. And I don’t begrudge the news entities for wanting to support their enterprise, but we need to factor this in when we hear “the news.” When they report a story, they have an incentive to make it as interesting, exciting and even “scary” as possible, because that is what “the people” like to watch according to the ratings. Who would tune into the news station that tells you something happened but don’t worry, it’s not a big deal? So you are right, Rick, we must write our own perspective on the news. It might be a big scary deal, but it might not. We the People, need to decide for ourselves.