I received this message last night from my friend:

“I know you aren’t much into politics, just so you know, Australia’s got a new Prime Minister.”

Not much into politics is a major understatement. I can say I am alienated in an intellectual way. I don’t watch, or read, or listen to the news if I can avoid it. In general, my news are a couple of years old, when the major events appear in published books.

I felt very grateful to have friends that alert me when something major is happening so I can reconnect with reality.

To maintain my stream of interesting issues to talk about, I connect with story tellers, with things like Ted talks, podcasts, audio books, going to events and lectures and even watching high quality drama (no reality tv permitted in any way).

I simply cannot stand the journalistic style of writing, I cannot find the energy or the will to read or view the news. Maybe it comes from the trauma of having lived in a third world country where the news are a string of atrocities or injustices, I’m not sure.

But today I made an exception to see what was going on in my country. I went to ABCs news podcasts and clicked on all the ones from today and yesterday about the change of the Prime Minister. It was hilarious because there are all these interviews from yesterday and they talk to many people who categorically affirmed “they are all rumours, there is no truth in any of that, we will be in power at least for another year” and about six hours later the exact opposite happened.

Watching the news knowing what comes next might be fun.