What is your opinion on [SCANDAL]? What about that [SKIRMISH] in [PLACE]? That [CELEBRITY] who embarrassed themselves? To those questions, the enlightened among us may answer: I’m not involved. I’ve never been there. I don’t know them personally.
News and trend cycles are incessant. We are constantly invited to join these 24/7 cycles, the volume of which will always outstrip our capacity to take them all in.
To fit in, you might feel pressured to form an opinion on every new fiasco. But what would those opinions lead to? Superficial connection? Social credit? Idle handwringing? Virtue signaling? A pretense of outrage or caring?
The liberating truth is that you don’t need to have an opinion. Your Human Race Membership Club Card does not require you to say something clever about everything.
You don’t even need to be in the know or pretend to care. There is absolutely no shame in saying, “I don’t know.”
Most news doesn’t matter. And if it does matter, someone — your family, friends, someone in your community — will almost certainly tell you about it.
“You always have the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”
~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book)
“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’ Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.”
~Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (Book)