Is a slow news week the quick path to enlightenment?

I spent the last week trying to pick a topic for this column, and finally decided to write about not picking a topic for this column.

As you know, I usually write about something in the national news — or try to shed some light on the news by providing perspective from the past — but that requires a willingness to sacrifice my characteristically cheerful disposition by sitting through endless dispatches from the war on sanity being waged in Washington, D.C.

And since for this past week, I have been on vacation with my family, I opted to hold onto the good cheer and jettison the bad news — you know, the endless bickering in Congress, the endless wars in the Middle East, the disasters both natural and unnatural which plague mankind. But before you think I am dumping on this newspaper, or any newspaper for that matter, let me hasten to explain.

Newspapers are just one part of the news business, and in my mind, the best part. But let’s consider the huge difference between what a newspaper provides as food for thought and what the cable news industry force-feeds us 24 hours a day.

There is something almost calming about reading a daily newspaper, especially a local community newspaper such as the Daily Inter Lake. We have been telling the story of the Flathead Valley since 1889 — and for more than one-fifth of that time, I have been writing or editing for the Inter Lake. So let me be plain: I love newspapers in general, and this one in particular.

Sure, there’s been bad news in the Inter Lake — plenty of it in 122 years. We’ve reported on too many wars and too many tragedies. Take your pick. For my part, I remember working that Fourth of July in 1987 when charismatic Terry Robinson and most of his fellow Montana Band members perished in a plane accident on Flathead Lake. I also still vividly recall working the wire shift one morning in 1994 and filling the last hole on Page 2 with what seemed like a relatively obscure story about the brutal murder of a woman who had been identified as O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife. Little did I know how that story would end, and ultimately how it would radically change people’s perspectives of the news.

And, of course, I remember the nation-changing cataclysm of Sept. 11, 2001 — when the Inter Lake put out what may have been the only “extra” edition in its history — a tear-filled catalog of horror.

So, yes, I’ve seen bad news  in the 27 years I’ve worked here, and our longtime readers have seen even more of it, but reading a newspaper like the Inter Lake on a regular basis, you get more a sense of continuity than change, more a sense of connectedness than disruption, more a sense of pride than despair. You’ll see bad news, but you have a choice whether to read it or not, and it’s always balanced by the good news of accomplishment, charity and caring. 

How different it is to watch cable news! With just a day’s worth of viewing, you could not only lose confidence in your government, you could lose faith in God and see the worst in everything around you. And unlike a newspaper, which is a smorgasbord of information available to take or leave, watching cable news is like mainlining heroin. Once you tune in, you have no control over what kind of information is being channeled into you.

Bad news? You bet! On cable TV, even good news is bad news — as stories are manipulated and twisted for maximum effect to chew the very last bit of life out of them. Entering this alternate universe is like visiting a carnival funhouse — everything you see and experience is distorted  and only vaguely related to reality. Every car on the freeway is potentially O.J. Simpson’s white Bronco. Every new marriage is potentially a juicy divorce. And every hero is just 15 minutes away from being exposed as a fallible, foolish mortal.

If you are looking for enlightenment, then following the path of cable news is roughly the equivalent of walking over a bed of hot coals. If you persevere long enough, you might eventually reach that state of unholy enlightenment where Bill O’Reilly morphs into Rachel Maddow and Fox Knows becomes indistinguishable from MSNBC Knows Better. But before you experience that breakthrough to Buddhahood, you are probably going to get really burnt.

And not just because of the sad stories. Life — and therefore the news — is full of sadness. That’s not a bulletin. I think you can find the same conclusion in Thoreau’s “Walden,” as well as in the aforementioned Buddha’s First Noble Truth that there IS suffering. Nonetheless, I have to tell you that Buddha and Thoreau didn’t know the half of it — because they did not have the parade of misery known as cable news and the fount of horrors known as the Internet constantly reinforcing their worst fears.

Nor do most of us who watch cable news stop long enough to really think about what we are filling our minds with. It’s just information, right? The stuff of knowledge? But tell that to Adam and Eve. They discovered that “too much information” can lead to confusion and chaos, as well as knowledge.

And — as it turns out — less information can lead to peace. That, finally, is what I realized when I turned off CNN, Fox News and MSNBC for the week. Life is much closer to serene without the screaming and preening of Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews and the other usual suspects.

Yes, the news remains just as bad as ever, but I don’t need to be reminded of that 24 hours a day with the blaring, bleating blather of cable. So, while I have continued to read the Daily Inter Lake for news of the community and an overview of the world’s sad state, I have steered clear of the grinding masticating maw of 24/7 cable news where every bit of gristle and gloom is regurgitated endlessly in an effort to sell us on the urgency of our own demise.

With just a newspaper in my hand instead of a remote control, I have lived life at a decent distance from the news, which means I have lived somewhat like my recent ancestors — one or two days removed from even the biggest catastrophe. It provides a buffer that may be vital to mental health in this world of woe.

I’m not sure I know what enlightenment is, but maybe it is something like this brief week of vacation that just ended — gathering up your loved ones, and letting go of your fears. Every once in a while, you just have to forget about the cable news and read the funny pages — even if you can’t get a column out of it.