According to the Greek slave-philosopher Epictetus, suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable.

I have unintentionally gone a month without reading a newspaper, listening to talk radio or tuning in to the news cycle.  It has been a pleasant respite. 

It is easy to see why so many people choose apathy over engagement in our current political environment.  People are largely rational and choose to avoid sources of frustration. 

It remains my observation that our leaders are detached from reality and appear to be uninterested in the actual preferences of the citizenry, choosing instead to declare what it is that Americans want and enforce policies which are doomed to fail.

Since 2003 I have followed the Housing Bubble closely, and since 2006 have avidly consumed information regarding the economic and political repercussions of its collapse.  I have enjoyed this intellectual exercise but recognize that it has been a sustained period of frustration.  My consternation seems to only intensify as the Government makes one bad decision after another, worsening the eventual comeuppance in favor of a short-term obfuscation of reality.

I prefer being informed and am ending my unplanned moratorium on current events.  But in an environment where reason is ignored in favor of political expediency and civil discourse is dismissed, I can see the merits of avoiding the unnecessary stress of paying attention.  Except that the roots of our present troubles were born from apathy and Government constructs brilliantly designed to transform voters into socialized lemmings.  I am not sure there is enough urgency or personal responsibility left to reverse the damage caused by a relentless and insulated political class, but at least it should make for interesting theater.