A survival guide for normal people

If you are reading this and your working hours are not consumed with politics, then you are a normal person, and this guide is largely meant for you. It will have some application for journalists, politicians, et cetera. But there will be some things that don’t and can’t apply to those whose job requires them to be immersed in the details of politics and governance.

The purpose of this guide is to offer a few thoughts on how to stay sane in the age of too much information and too much rage (or alternatively for those of you who think lots of rage is good, too much information and lots of rage).

I have just three principles which I offer up for your contemplation toward the living of a better life.

1. The 24-hour rule: wait roughly a day before reacting to any piece of news with any strong reaction or opinion.
2. Pick one thing and become an expert on that one issue or area.
3. Make time for beauty.

The 24 Hour Rule

I owe that catchphrase to my friend Will Rahn. It’s something we’ve both been thinking about. We both work in media, and so we see a lot of headlines throughout every day. My attitude for years — but increasingly over the past few and especially over the last several months — has been to shrug at most headlines, especially the salacious ones, knowing that if they’re legit they will be enduring stories, and if they’re just hyped up headlines then they’ll fade away.

There are some who work in media whose job it is to be on top of the news cycle minute to minute, especially those who work in 24-hour cable TV news. It’s not the fault of those people that they do that. It is the fault of the media execs who decide that much of their programming should be ephemeral rather than substantive. That’s because it’s easier, and more importantly cheaper, to fill most of the day’s hours reacting to things rather than investing considerable resources on journalism that’s not as sexy but which actually delves in depth into matters that would serve to educate and inform. That programming, the thinking goes, would yield lower ad revenue because fewer people would watch it, and would cost way more money than simply having talking heads on much of the day. I tend to think people would watch, but I’m…