[Watch] A song for sanity in 2018

During grad school, I had a morbid period where I would watch YouTube videos with the audio and transcripts of black boxes from plane crashes. I have never been one to avert my eyes from a tragedy. Quite the opposite, they draw me.

That's how I relate to today’s news. It's like a never-ending car wreck and it's hard to not be transfixed.  I have always been a news junkie, but now it’s in hyperdrive. I check Twitter for hours a day, wondering what the next shocking news story will be.

I don’t read it in expectation of a great advancement – a disease cured! A marginalised minority given rights! I check the news each morning wondering what western country is curtailing democracy today (it’s faint comfort that we are not the only nation attacking its democratic institutions) and I wonder what incoherent and awkwardly spelled musings have been gifted by the Great Leader.

Simply put, 2017 was a horrible news cycle. There’s only one gift I want this holiday season:  a year without a constant stream of depressing stories. I'm not optimistic this will happen, but, hey, it can't hurt to wish.

Also read: The power of nudity: How exposing naked body and genitals changed the world