I don’t have many feelers in the world about what is going on. I get a notification on my phone if something noteworthy is happening, though I block all the news regarding certain billionaires in charge in a country I think is not even real. I listen to some podcasts, and the commentary I get there tells me a lot. One is from an old Dutch historian, Maarten van Rossum. He is over eighty years old, and he has seen it all. He often gets the question if he is not worried about what is happening in the world now, and he laughs about it. Of course, some things are not good, but all the alarm is so dumb (his words). I also remember the Reagan days and the fear we had of nuclear war. I though life as we know it would end, but it didn’t.

I don’t listen to what is happening in America because I am worried; I don’t listen to or follow the news from that place out of some sort of shame. Can you imagine if the Martian came and asked for our leader, and he showes up… it’s just so ridiculous that I have a hard time believing that it is happening.

I also have to say that in between getting up, going to work, being busy with restoring these wooden boats, coming back home, drinking some coffee, making dinner, writing something on my blog, and playing some mindles games while listening to something interesting leaves little room to be worried or feel threatened by the world. Things are safe here in Norway. The doors are still unlocked, and I can’t remember ever seeing the police this year. Most people’s lives are pretty uneventful, and an information overload causes most worries, I think.

In the early eighties, I was worried, but also just 9 or 10. I was worried because my mother was a lefty, and we went to anti-war and nuclear bomb demonstrations. And there were also posters in the house warning about these bombs. I was not worried because I understood the danger; I was told to be worried. If my mother had been a right-leaning conservative, I would probably have felt safe with these nuclear weapons protecting us from the comies, and I would have had an other memory.

There is a big difference between the immediate danger of a real war that is happening around you or if you live in an objectively dangerous neighborhood or the danger you feel because you are spoonfed fear from whatever direction you lean your mouth to.

I recommend looking at your news app only a few times a week but leaving the notification on in case something important happens. No social media except if you only follow family or specific interest groups that are not news-related. Reading books is healthy, and good old-fashioned magazines, even if they are digital, are a good substitute for flashy websites.

Having discussions online or in the real world seems to be interesting, and maybe it doesn’t matter that the social group that influenced you in the past was your family and some friends, and now half the world, but discussions about your opinions are as fruitless as trying to describe the Mona Lisa if you have never seen or heard of it.

And study history. We live in strange times now, but you will be amazed that there have always been periods that were strange and, more often than not, much more dangerous than the time we live in now.