The daily drama of American reality TV politics has ratcheted up intensely.
It sometimes feels like you may have missed a major event that has changed the world if you have not checked your news source for 20 minutes. The crises skip from one theater one day to another one remotely distant the next. One day's "disaster" supplants the previous one. And so on.
You don't need scientific confirmation to see that this kind of erratic, high-speed drama over matters of survival adds stress and angst to the lives of many across the country.
But as irresistible as the epic drama is, paying attention to every twist and turn will drain you. Periodically, you need to take a break and remind yourself that the news is not the only reality. Just taking a walk can do it. Or, reading a good book, watching a good movie, socializing with friends-anything that is fun "recalibration."
For me, the best way to completely change my frame of mind is to take a trip.
I recommend getting out there in the world and interacting with people, history and art. The ultimate antidote to the insanity of the political world is nature.
Thoreau talked about the "tonic of wildness." Many others have echoed the sentiment that communing with nature is great medicine, that it is wisdom communicated nonverbally.
When you stand in awe of a wonder of nature, you are tuned into a much higher frequency of intelligence than you are exposing yourself to via the news.
So following my own advice on the previous Friday during a week of nuclear brinkmanship, I threw my stuff in the car and headed for Vermont and one of my favorite wilderness areas in the Green Mountains. I slept in a cabin next to a river, where the rush of the current played soft white noise all day and night and tall trees stood majestically all around.
I tried to photograph the trees on the opposite bank of the river, but the photos did not capture their 3D presence, the subtle movement of the branches in the breeze or the high frequency of motion that could be sensed as a fine buzz, a shimmer. The cellular activity of their photosynthetic processes was too microscopic for my senses to apprehend, but I could sense some fine vibration of life coming from them.
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I went to my favorite swimming hole and plunged into the bracing coolness of the water that races down the mountainside. I swam against the current in the clear water for a few moments before it overcame my resistance and I moved out of the mainstream.
I climbed out of the water as the sunlight warmed my skin, sizzling the cool drops into evaporation. The breeze cooled me in patches. The tall trees stood by like quiet, benevolent giants as I enjoyed my brief presence in their sphere.
A friend came by with kayaks, and we drove on winding roads a thousand feet up the side of the mountain to a nearby reservoir-where people are allowed to take out canoes and kayaks, but very few ever do. Four of us had practically the whole lake to ourselves.
The motion of kayaking was enchanting: The elegance of the locomotive system, the maneuverability, the stillness of the waters, the dancing motion of propelling oneself. When we were not paddling, the lake was quiet. You could speak almost in whispers, echoing off the smooth lake surface.
Among the few sounds that broke the stillness were distant birdcalls echoing through the cavernous landscape surrounding the lake.
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We started late in the day so we were there when the sun neared the horizon, reflecting in blinding flashes off the gentle ripples on the glassy surface of the water. When the mountain horizon eclipsed the sun, purple cloud formations painted audacious patterns over the blue sky.
While floating out in the middle of a large body of water, the ugly images of the news seemed distant and vague.
They lost their power.
I struggled to bring to mind the news stories that had been so disturbing the week before and it seemed almost laughable. I knew I would have to return to the bad news at the start of a new week, but I was refreshed. I had adjusted my perspective to rhythms that are much slower and processes that are more enduring than the events of this week's news.
If the world were to end over the weekend, I would have spent my last days well.
Taking a break from the news would not change anything in that world. But it sure made a difference in my personal world. It was a lot better way to spend my weekend than sitting home with my face glued anxiously to the screen.
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