Stop the Doomscrolling

Keep your media diet healthy and sane with these recommendations

Years ago, I left social media and stopped looking at the daily news.

I was inspired by Henry David Thoreau, who believed that all news is gossip.

I still think he’s mostly right.

These past months, I’ve been back to constantly checking the news on my phone. It’s a hard addiction to shake, and I’m not proud of it.

I try to stay aware and mindfully observe when I do it, and how I react to it.

Last week, I suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to drown out all the noise and retreat from the news cycle completely.

When bad things happen, it’s easy to get stuck in a loop of refreshing your feeds. But doomscrolling doesn’t provide any value. It doesn’t help anyone, least yourself.

Look, I’m not ignorant. I just believe that Nietzsche was right in saying that if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Honestly, I just wanted everyone to shut up for a moment.

Music, books and films have always provided that safe haven for me.

In this week’s recommendations, I will focus on some quiet works.

Take it not from me, but from Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield:

“Turn off the news for a while, meditate, turn on Mozart, walk through the forest or the mountains and begin to make yourself a zone of peace. Let go of the latest story. Listen more deeply. When we react to insecurity with fear we worsen the problem—we create a frightened society. Instead we can use courage and compassion to respond calmly, with both prudent action and a fearless heart. […] It is our inner nobility and steadiness that we must call upon in our personal and collective difficulties.”

With metta,

Stephan

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After the paywall, you will find my listening, reading and watching recommendations for the week:

• a piece of absolutely non-generic ambient music from the late genius Steve Roden,

• five other works I’ve been playing on repeat, from electroacoustic composition to improvised post-rock to abstract dub techno to gothic dream-pop,

• links to five articles on a new platform on neoclassical, ambient, electronic and film music I’m professionally involved with,

• a review of a live film soundtrack performance.

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