Growing up everyone told me that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, on a long, steady, slow decline. I no longer see it this way. Maybe it’s because I studied history in college and discovered the amusing fact that about once a decade some grumpy historian/politician/scholar will gripe about “kids these days” and “things aren’t what they used to be.” The most recent example I saw was two old ladies in line at a Starbucks:

Grumpy Granny 1: This line is so long.
Grumpy Granny 2: Yes, it didn’t used to be this long.
Grumpy Granny 1: And the coffee used to be better.
Grumpy Granny 2: Yes, Starbucks just isn’t what it used to be.
Grumpy Granny 1: No, it certainly isn’t.

This went on for quite some time while I resisted the overwhelming urge to laugh and point. These ladies saw the world as horrible because they chose to. They were myopic and deliberately unhappy. I’m sorry but if the worst problem you have is standing in a line to get coffee, you need a perspective check.

You are what you think, and I think I’ll be something positive. Instead of feeding my brain on a steady diet of intellectual chee-tos, I won’t watch the news and instead of picking up copies of Marie Claire and OK! I’ll read Science and Wired. So it’s no wonder to me that I am convinced that we are headed toward an ever happier, healthier world while many of my acquaintance regurgitate the rubbish spewed out by talking heads looking for better ratings.

Sex, scandal, and crisis sells because it touches on our most primal instincts — lust, pride, and fear. The mile-a-minute pace of television is designed to keep you plugged in, tuned in, and obediently shelling out the bucks to make the sponsors happy. Marketers have to be aware of the fact that keeping consumers stressed out will make them unable to think things through properly. Rapid-fire, high intensity news and advertising can keep you agitated and willing to make snap judgments. So I refuse to pay any attention to them.

It might sound like ridiculous optimism, but things are pretty darn good. We have a better standard of life than human beings have ever known. You just have to take the time to pause for breath and realize that. You also have to learn to fend off the seductive and addicting effects of a constantly plugged in lifestyle as well as mass marketing, which has honed emotional exploitation to an art form. Things have never been better, but I also have to be sure that I don’t become so addicted to constant psychological data bombardment that my head asplode.

I’ve noticed one way that “things aren’t what they used to be” and that’s the fact that people are addicted to information flow. Beginning right now I will be spending 48 hours with no phone, no Internet, no computers, and no wires whatsoever. The world will not stop turning if I disconnect for two whole days, so sayonara until Sunday. We used to live like that before, remember? Back before satellite TV, cell phones, text messaging, mobile Web, voice mail, call forwarding, hot spots, and news alerts, we used to just have to wait until we got home to get information. And somehow the world operated. I’m going to be outside running around like an idiot re-enacting the opening scene of The Sound of Music this weekend, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it. If you call, text, or e-mail, it’s not that I don’t love you. I just need to cut the wires for a few days.

Signing off.