No news is good news
Ridiculous. There is one reason I read news, and it is stronger now than ever.<p>I started reading news when I was about 14 and this was my reasoning: &quot;There were Jews in nazi germany who could have escaped the horrors but didn&#x27;t. Some, not all, but some had the resources to emigrate, to run, but they either didn&#x27;t see the danger coming, or didn&#x27;t believe it will get as bad as it got, or had too deep roots to move themselves. I will want to be like the Jews who escaped, who kept their eyes open and realised what is coming and went and saved their life and their loved ones life.&quot; And that&#x27;s why I started reading news. In case there are people thinking about killing me and mine I can bolt.<p>Now excuse my 14 year old self&#x27;s naive understanding of history. It is never as easy as just that. But certainly there are dangers in life. I want to avoid those dangers. I want my loved ones to avoid those dangers. And here I don&#x27;t mean the dangers of idk toxins in this and that normal foodstuff, or the dangers of strange man hiding in the dark. Those are catchy images, but statistically speaking they are not worth worrying about.<p>So what kind of dangers do I mean then? Normally I just say &quot;i will know when I see it&quot;, but sadly we have a very clear and present example. I heard about the possibility of the Russian invasion first thing last November. I did recognise that it has the potential of being very bad and if I would have had family and loved ones in Ukraine I would have tried to make them move to a safer place. And increasingly as the signal grew I would have exerted more effort to make that happen. I hope that if I would have had family in Ukraine they would not be there by the start of the invasion. (And I know this also has a component of not just being well informed, but also having resources. I recognise my privilege.)<p>So that&#x27;s why I&#x27;m reading news. To gather the temperature of the pot I&#x27;m swimming in with my loved ones. And I also understand that this makes me prone to overreact, and that is fine. I would rather be the pigeon who nervously flitters about than the pigeon who got eaten by the cat.