Are You A Reader?

A reader asked me...

Before I continue, I ask you what or who is a reader? If a person interprets these words and then responds to me about them, does that person qualify as a reader? It's a question that I can't answer because I don't know enough about the process of human sensory input, thought creation and bodily reaction/action/output.

Anyway, a reader asked me what I thought about the recent events happening around the world, from the clash between Uighurs and Hans in Asia to the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks on the Internet, implying in the question that major disruptive events are rocking the world.

You are one person. You read the news. You see hundreds, thousands or millions of entities involved in an activity and compare yourself to the group of entities, feeling yourself in comparison in size to the entities in the group based on your sense of belonging to another group or groups. You can easily feel overwhelmed by the events happening in the news, even if hundreds, thousands or millions of people around you are completely unaffected by the news or uninvolved with the activities broadcasted in the news.

Can you see what I'm saying? Any news you hear is unreal, not because the information you receive is intentionally falsified but because your view of news is skewed. That's why I tell you you are the most important person in the world because to view the news without bias, one must balance one's sense of importance against the masses of faces seen and heard on video broadcasts.

In fact, like many people who advise you to seek success in your life, I recommend you not read or watch the daily news because almost 100% of the information is not useful for your daily living except as conversation fillers. Your life is more important than the news.

With my general view of news established, I'll say with sadness that it's too bad people of two or more distinct ethnic origins cannot find a way to live together peacefully (or at least without resorting to killing one another). I have insufficient information to make comments any more specific than that because any news I read will not tell me about the daily lives and long-term motivations of the people in the news.