News Junkie

I don't understand people who don't read newspapers. And ultimately I probably don't get along with them either.

Maybe I should say, they are not the people I have an affinity with in the short or the long run.

I start and end my days with checks of the headlines and read articles when I am unable to sleep or frustrated with too much other work.

In my circle, conversations will turn around stories we have read in the paper, online or heard on NPR or CNN (well not me but you know).

We all have our trusted outlets and compare coverage and stories and details.

We extrapolate from these stories to build meaning about our wider world.

Some of us are more interested in politics, others in pop culture, others in world affairs. We each have our own special interests but all have a love of quirky stories (however that manifests for each of us).

So when I meet someone with no knowledge of current events - almost as though they lived so remotely in an unconnected time that they can't get news - I have to work to be patient and not incredulous (I regularly fail at that).

This week though I also started to think about the other side of that coin. As in what is the internal and conversational life of that kind of person.

To what common topics do they turn in a lull in conversation? How do they build meaning about the world? What are their building blocks?

I shuffled through in my mind all the people I regularly engage in conversation and they are all news regulars if not junkies like me.

Clearly this is not by accident. But how deliberate is this selection process!? Does it just happen?

Just the random thoughts that fly through my brain while I am not reading or writing what I should. Or when I am trying to not obsess about the fact that my computer seems to have developed a bad case of sleeping beauty.