Quiet, please.

I wonder what would happen if we said no.

No to the aspects of the modern world that really make no sense.

Like the constant noise.

The never-ending jabber.

The speculation.

The gluing ourselves in front of the television. 

And listening to quasi-models for hours-on-end talk about things they know nothing about.

I wonder what would happen if we decided to take a break.

A break from the 24-hour news cycle.

Where one sensation pushes out the previous one like sanity whack-a-mole.

Where catastrophes and disasters and once-in-a-lifetime tragedies happen sixty times a minute. 

Even our hundred-year storms happen five times a month.

I wonder what would happen if we limited our exposures.

We shut down the computer.

Shut off the TV.

Plugged our ears against the incessance.

And read a book.

A nice, meaningless, directionless book.

Maybe something that made us think, feel, cry, think or laugh.

I haven't turned on the TV through all this.

I'm not listening to NPR.

Sure, I check the newspapers. 

The Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and lately the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Las Vegas Register. 

I give them about ten seconds each.

I see if there's any news--not speculation, news. 

And I move on.

It's great that we have the entire world perpetually at our fingertips.

But life shouldn't be structured like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

We need restraint.

And we need distance.

And quiet.

Happy Friday.

We'll get through this.