Bad news is on every media outlet, every day, and then a thread concerning the bad news is started right here, and then we yell at each other about the cause. Is anything going well? Yes, actually. I've been living and working in Downtown Los Angeles since July. I am transferring back to Texas next month with mixed feelings. The reason is that, in this pit of squalor and permissiveness, I notice something every day that I noticed from day one: the people here are upbeat. From the food delivery guys to the bureaucrats to the restaurant managers, they are cheerful and work with zeal, but they don’t seem harried or frenzied. Nobody complains, ever, about anything. Not out loud, anyway. Yes, there are crazy Walking Dead zombies that you have to keep well away from, and that's a serious concern. There is also a worrisome obsession with electronic devices: people walk their dogs with their faces glued to a screen. The people, not the dogs. But something, maybe the weather, makes almost everyone seem glad to be alive. They hold the door for you, say "good morning" and "have a nice day." It's the damnedest thing I ever saw. Groups of teens and 20-somethings are usually of at least two different races. Also, I never encounter sarcasm. I've never seen a rolled eye. I don't know if this helps explain it, but I never see little kids anywhere. Maybe they're all in the suburbs. Have a nice day.
When I worked in DC, both with and for the Federal government I really came to understand how much total news saturation sucks. TV news is the constant soundtrack of DC and it will suck the life out of you pretty quick. I eventually came to my own "Opus in the Dandelion Field" moment and stopped paying attention. These days I'm 62, married 36 years, on the brink of having our modest house in the Valley paid off, got a new rescue dog to wrassle with, kids have settled just up the road and they still like visiting, doing physical work every day, got a paid off F150 with a 5.0L (grew up in Dearborn- what can say, I'm a sentimental homer), and I'm restarting my goofy band with my now 3 Norlin-era Gibsons courtesy of my wife. Any more good news and I'd probably explode.
Bad news sells and it gets one's hackles up, so that's why the media focus on the negative, hence why I don't watch the news, or read newspapers, or online newspapers. I just see snippets on forums and off sites when I specifically search for a news clip/story.
I was a capenter. We used to have a saying- "Any day you come home with as many fingers as you left the house with is a Good day". That one and "All is well that ends."
