My News Addiction...

My news addiction isn't getting any better. I served a mission for my church for a period of two years. During that time I didn't do anything other than focus on scriptures, teaching, learning about people, and volunteer work. When I got home I had been checked out of the world for about 2 years. One of the first things I did was go to the magazine section of the library and flip through magazines for hours. I did this several times a week. Not reading through everything, but seeing what was being written about, what was in the news often and reading things that seemed most important. I would of course come up with questions and interests as I did so and I followed them. From this I decided a few things. First, i didn't want to go into psychology like I thought I had before (I had thought that the secret to life was understanding people & yourself). I also decided that I would finally learn what this politics stuff was all about. While I was on my mission, we invaded Iraq. Although I heard a lot about it from French Canadians who weren't fond of our Country, I hadn't really been able to follow it much. I decided I would learn about this political stuff. Understand the issues. I also decided that I wanted to learn about business (I decided that maybe the secret to life was understanding a the world, hence business). I guess more than anything I thought that I had the greatest chances of happiness in my life if I understood the world. So I kept reading the news. Magazines and magazines and magazines. I eventually discovered the stock market, Fox, and the Drudge Report. And I kept learning. I argued with people about politics as if I knew what I was talking about. I guess I still do. I know more than I did before, but I still really don't know that much. I eventually discovered the economist, started reading about history, watched and read a lot of Bill O'Reilly. I just couldn't get enough. I wanted to know about this big soap opera we call the world. There was so much information out there to feast on. I learned about computers, business, politics, people, history, etc.. I'm still trying to figure it all out and I am a news addict. I need information, up to date information. I need to understand. I have this love hate relationship. I love the excitement and the learning and the changes in my perception of the world, but I also hate it too. I've gradually found that the excitement, learning and changes in my perception always seemed to be somewhat negative. The world is a wonderful and terrible place. I believe in beauty and I see beauty in my life. But so often the news is horribly dismal. I think though that I keep up the addiction and quest, like many of the "truthers" out there because I also perhaps naively hope that some how some way the study and airing of all these evils will lead us to be wise and perhaps somehow avert the troubles yet to come.