Recharing My Perspective

I TRULY DON'T KNOW how writers, bloggers and consumers of post-modern news and current events go forth day after day on an even keel without occasionally having a day off to catch up emotionally and spiritually. I mean, does the news ever pile up so far in your head, that it begins to affect your emotions even down to how you do the laundry?

Well it does for me.

Yesterday, I was in my favorite local bookstore and overheard two women talking about how they couldn't take watching TV or listening to the news anymore. I've decided ignorance is bliss! one said to the other and me. I can't take all the bad news I'm hearing! I'm at my absolute wits end!

I didn't get into it with them because I was in a hurry. Yet I knew exactly what they were saying and agreed completely in my heart-of -hearts. Sometimes I find I simply can't take in anymore until I process all that I've already seen, heard and read. It now comes, if you let it, at warp speed. It's non-stop on the web, on Twitter, TV. All the financial and bailout news, Obama's foreign policy road show, the Miss USA pageant, not to mention stuff like this. My head reels, day in, day out.

So now one day in about 30, I awaken and feel a frozen place in my soul. I try but can barely go near my computer. I realize after my first cup of coffee that I've reached my limit a day or two earlier and need to step back for a few hours, a day, sometimes more.

It's when I don't recognize this, that I begin to talk about giving up blogging and going to live in a cave. But now I recognize when I start thinking like this, it's mostly about being in information overload and need of some space to process it all.

I learned long ago the secret to my own brand of vitality is to sometimes give myself an intellectual rest and let my emotions have their day. Yesterday and most of today was that for me. It's a way back to enthusiam and away from cynicism. It's the only way I can go on to turn on the computer and write about what I see and read the other days of the year.