I have come to accept that news and the constant stream of world events and commentary are unavoidable. While I believe that we should try to stay informed on world events to some level, that level is significantly less than anyone with an internet connection is subject to daily. This gives us the ability to see all the horror the world has to offer without any of the peripheral scene and background as well as hear all the failure points, theories, and targets of who to blame before any dust has time to settle. It tugs at our heart, it fills us with fear and anger, but most of all, it leaves us wondering what we should do with this information. How should we feel, react, plan, or integrate this information into our life today?
Not too long ago, news traveled differently. It came from print, which came from letters and phone calls. It wasn’t a small feat to deliver news of world wide happenings into the hands of the masses. Television was live, so if you missed it, you would have to hear it elsewhere. The transfer of news was simply a communal affair, so what news you received was either sought after or very important. It was a filter, but was sufficient for the masses. The communal element has many cons, but one of the pros was more trust. Dissenting content took as much or more effort, so it carried weight. The reputation of the information source was pinnacle, whether that was the editor or the town gossip.
It doesn’t help that everything is bigger now, either. As the population of the world has reached its highest levels, any peril runs the risk of being the largest on record. This can also be chalked up to the fact that we just started keeping these records 200 or so years ago when the world’s population was about 1 Billion, one eighth of today’s. With a denser population, the human impact is notably larger than in the past. With more money and technology in the system, the financial impact is also notably more as well. The simple economics of us living in a bigger world make for great, fear mongering headlines. Historic floods, fires, earthquakes, and conflicts can give every instance around the globe the feeling of being nothing short of biblical.
I don’t believe humans are built to carry the weight of the world. All of us have a proclivity to do good and be helpful to those in need. We hear calls to aid and want to answer, but when those calls come from places that we will likely never see, maybe never meet anyone from, and for causes we know nothing about, we experience something of a moral wound. The readiness to help save the world, but not knowing where to start or if we can make a difference at all.
There is a half trillion dollar industry built around this in the US alone. Charities and non-profits make up 5–10% of the US economy and employ nearly 12 million people. Making it the third largest employer after manufacturing and retail. We care a lot and want to help. Despite our willingness to help, the average rate of payout to the cause of these charities averages 22%. The mean in 2023 was reported to be only 7.5% across the industry. So for every dollar you give, depending on the make-up of your charity of choice (and who really has time to research and fact check these things), you can expect about a quarter to actually go to the cause, making the price we pay to feel like we help is riddled with fees at a level that we would not accept in any other aspect of the economy.
Then there is the idea of “being on the right side of history,” a concept that is thrown around often these days. It signals the sentiment of acting in a way that future generations and history books will look at with approval. This being in contrast to how it seems the current population views the actions of our forebears. This is a heavy weight on the average person, who likely will never be noted in any public history records. It follows the train of thought that “you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up.” This sort of delusion of grandeur wrapped in meritocracy is detrimental to living the kind of good life we should all be trying to live, being kind and useful to our family, society, and true scope of influence. It leads us to recon with the fact that we could have been great, but ended up in a normal career, surrounded by normal people, and live a completely normal life as if all these are bad things and not a miracle of modern life that the average life is filled with the kind of abundance that makes all our luxuries seem trivial.
We are living through historical times though, no matter our station, and with this great calling comes great responsibility. No time in history could the average person achieve so much or do so much good. At least that is what we are told. History has been filled with pivotal moments. They happen every few decades for some reason or another. Few periods long enough to span a human life in all of human history could have written about them “nothing really happened for a while. Everything was normal for the whole world.” No, empires rose and fell, wars were waged and victors emerged, poverty and affluence had their moments, people were born and died, and yet humanity progressed. The real pivotal moments happened in the lives of the people living life throughout history. Every success story has a low point and every tragedy has a moment where things go from bad to worse. Life doesn’t happen in a clean upwards trajectory, but it does progress, guided by our decisions.
I can’t really say what the history books will say about the era of my life, if anything of substance. I can’t say if any current figure will truly be remembered as a hero or a villain. I cannot even tell if a few generations from now, if history will be studied in schools. I don’t think that is too important. All I can do is to surround myself with people that I can weather the storm of making history with and, with some luck, be someone that can glean something of substance to pass on from my experiences. I can aim to have the courage to help those close to me when tragedy strikes inside my sphere of direct influence in hopes of lessening the burden on my neighbors and I can hope that they would do the same. Together, just maybe, our corner of the world can be as close to paradise as we can muster. Full of rich experiences and deep connection, not focused on the rest of the world, but those close by.
As for the rest of the world, I do hope things get better. That goodness will prevail and utopia is reached peacefully. I hope that those with the ambition and means to make the hard decisions will rise to the occasion, and I will do my part to support with my votes and efforts when I am truly needed and can contribute meaningfully. I will weather the consequences of the collective decisions for good and bad. We are not all born, nor chosen to be leaders. Few if any are privy to the true details of the larger workings of the world and we don’t need to be. Therefore, I can only watch so much discourse in the media. I can only witness so much pain that I cannot alleviate. I can only fight so many fights and keep peace within myself. Because of this, I can’t stay plugged in.
We have to write our own history. We can choose to fixate on the good we can do now. For some of us, it will open many doors and for some of us, we will be disenfranchised from the bigger stage. It’s not callousness for the world that I don’t get involved, but it is because I have something right in front of me that needs my attention. I can do a lot of good for my family, friends, and community. I have come to find that I would rather be spoken well of in my community for the difference that I made in the lives of the few, than force my way into a history book to be dissected and redacted.
I am tired of living through historical times. I wish only to live my life and look back at its history with fondness. Maybe you feel the same.