How Much Do I Really Need to Know?

investing in humanity, divesting from socials

a text conversation between me and my best friend on the day of the inauguration

Towards the end of last year, I decided to pursue what I called “Monk January.” For me, this meant that I would be abstaining from alcohol and social media. Or, in other words, not living like a monk at all. I used GPS and smoked cigarettes and watched YouTube videos. I hardly meditated or kept my mouth shut. But I did find that not using social media, far more than not drinking alcohol, immediately translated to people around me that I was, in some way, experiencing life differently from them.

I was offline during the Los Angeles wildfires. I was offline when the ceasefire was announced. I was offline when David Lynch died. I was offline when Trump got inaugurated. I still know, and care deeply, about all of these things (no offense to David Lynch and his incredible legacy but, hopefully it goes without saying, some more than others). But also, I don’t know as much about them as everyone else around me.

When the wildfires hit, I scoured news articles to assess the damage and checked in with all my loved ones in the area. After about thirty minutes of scrolling, I realized that I had come away with the most salient information about this devastating event — that it was devastating, that thousands lost their homes and some lost their lives, that it will change California forever, that incarcerated people were fighting these fires on penny wages, that the worst of the destruction will inevitably affect the least advantaged. And then, I sat with the information. I considered if scrolling more, if getting back on Twitter to see what people were saying, if going down an online rabbit hole, would help me see the picture any clearer. I decided that it didn’t.

Similarly, when my best friend texted me about the inauguration, I wasn’t keeping up with it beat-for-beat. I was aware that it was happening. I figured that there would be a transfer of power. I was keeping abreast of my news apps if anything particularly crazy were to happen. All in all, I had a pretty unremarkable Monday.

I’ve been thinking deeply about this idea recently — how much do I really need to know? I by no means think that I (or anyone) should be exempt from keeping up with the political and social going-ons of the world. Certainly, it’s invaluable to remember that one’s personal life is not reflective of the lives of everyone else. But I have recognized an impulse in myself to keep intaking information, as though it were a moral imperative to know every meticulous detail of all Earthly horrors. And, as much as I would like to think that it does, I don’t think that this impulse comes from duty. I think it comes from guilt. If I couldn’t directly help, the least I could do was witness. The least I could do was watch, feeling increasingly helpless, feeling increasingly numb.

Ultimately, I realized that this impulse actually resulted in me feeling less about the things I purported to care about. All the information swelled to a terrifying, dizzying checked-out-ed-ness, where I would make my way through a timeline that showed me children missing limbs in Palestine to an influencer’s makeup tutorial to details about Trump’s incoming cabinet to a house tour in the Hamptons. The bizarre, violent juxtaposition of it all started to turn my brain off. It was simply too much information.

In On Photography, a work I have been most recently reminded of by way of my friend

rayne fisher-quann

, Susan Sontag says this:¹

“To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more — and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize.”

This month, without socials, I’ve actually been able to devote time to thinking about the things I care about with some depth. I watched The Girl in the River, a documentary about an attempted honor killing in Pakistan, and it rocked me deeply. Without a timeline of competing horrors to scroll through in the background, I was able to fully devote my attention to the feelings the film brought up within me. I had capacity to do further research and free time to sit alone in my apartment, just thinking and feeling through the inhumanity of global femicide. I had space inside myself to really reflect on my own immense privilege, and it felt differently from when I would feel that pang while scrolling on socials — a pang that was immediately numbed by the next overload of information.

It is a privilege within itself to not live in a place where I need to rely on immediate, urgent communications. I do not live in a warzone or a natural disaster area where I must constantly receive updates on where it may be safe for me to be, what it may be safe for me to do. I do live in a country that is loping towards the conclusion of a fascist turn, one that certainly threatens my rights as a woman and queer person.

So, I return to my original question — how much do I really need to know? And, further, how can I ensure that I’m getting the knowledge I seek without either turning towards ignorance or overwhelming myself with information?

As a tax-paying member of the American public, I find it important to educate myself on my country’s past and current atrocities, here and abroad. Against my will, my money builds Israeli bombs. Against my will, my money employs millions of cops. Against my will, my money funds private prisons. It would be plainly stupid and completely against my values to consciously avoid these facts. So I won’t.

I must, however, remain clear-eyed and energetic enough to fight what is currently happening and what is to come. I cannot do that when I am overwhelmed, when I am broken. I cannot do that when I am, in Sontag’s words, anesthetized.

How much do I really need to know? Enough to know what I think and how I feel. Knowing any more makes both impossible.

1. For further reading re: Sontag and the role of empathy in politics, I suggest Rayne’s piece the ends of empathy, and Keyvan S.’s Against Grief as a Political Currency