Ever since I deactivated my twitter account, these days I’m largely cut off from the latest news. This is of course a very good thing. The news is nothing but tragedy and sadness. There’s never any good news, is there? The only reason even I knew about the missing Titanic submersible from last week was my friends told me about it.
That sort of news is at least interesting and fascinating, worthy of a lengthy discussion that stretches multiple days (I guess our friend group doesn't have better things to do). What I can’t give a crap about is the daily political stuff that my coworker prefers to talk about. I literally don’t care what Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is doing or not doing. I live in San Francisco, California; I’m more interested in what our own mayor is doing.
But I have to maintain some modicum of politeness, right? I can’t exactly shut them down immediately soon as a coworker comes to me with a latest news topic. Do that often enough and none of them will talk to me again ever. Or perhaps that’s really what I want: to be left alone. (Which I do.) To be congenial with the officemates, however, I would listen half intently, then say something glib in response. The goal is to listen, then say things in a way that ends that particular conversation topic quickly.
Please don’t ruin my zen, people. I’m quite okay with not knowing what’s going in the larger outside world. I’ll simply watch the local 6 o'clock news to get my fix of what’s immediately pertinent.
Aluminium.