The Man who Opted Out

So, a while back the NYT had an interesting piece about someone who's chosen to opt out of the current endless political news. He voted, his candidate lost, and he can't put up with the endless back-and-forth shouting that marks our times. As someone who has at times in my life done without a tv altogether, I can sympathize. Sometimes the shouting gets to be too much and you have to just walk away for a bit. I know it probably did me good when we gave up cable tv a year and more back. The next time I'd been on one of my research trips I'd binged, watching four to five hours a night of MSNBC. I wondered if I'd do that again this trip, and the answer has turned out to be no. I've spent the evenings working on a side-project and sometimes just reading and resting up for the next day's session.

As for the subject of the article, he's using his down time to create an ecological area, his own little Walden Pond he hopes to turn into a protected nature park. So he's putting his away-time to good use.


Here's the link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-too-little.html

--John R.
--current reading: SEVEN SKELETONS: THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS FOSSILS by Lydia Pyne (2016)