In a blog post called “One Morning, Two Realities,” Toirdhealbheach Beucail (whose name I must someday learn how to pronounce) writes about the contrast between the life that greets him when he awakes — the dog and his other pets, his family, his home — and the life that assaults him when he flips the switch and lets the outer world invade.
I call the morning news “The OMG Report.” The TV personalities seek out the most alarming and aberrant behavior they can find and hurl it in our faces in what feels like a deliberate attempt to disrupt our calm and fuel our fear and rage.
“The sky is falling!” shouts the expert or the petty tyrant on the screen. “A piece of it struck me in the head! You’re next!” (Do they tell children the story of Chicken Little anymore?)
TB considers that the life he first encounters in the morning, the one with the charming dependent animals, his morning read, and the human loves of his life, “are far more of life than ‘real life’ seems to be. Absolutely. “The OMG Report” is a bit of nervous entertainment, akin to a horror movie or roller coaster, and the reality we wake up to is more like an epic romantic poem, more challenging to get through, perhaps, but full of real nourishment.
