It doesn\u2019t matter what you are \u2014\u00a0Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, left, right, center, North By Northwest, slightly off \u2014\u00a0chances are you could use a break from politics. We all could. If there\u2019s one thing that can bring us together as a nation, it\u2019s that we collectively need a vacation from ourselves. Or at least our government. Or the shenanigans of our government. Because it\u2019s too much, right? And it would be good to get some time away. To catch our breath. To forget there is such a thing as Washington (aka, Hootenannyville.)<\/p>\n
Which is why I decided to get away from it by going cold turkey on politics this week. It would be good for me personally \u2014\u00a0a cleanse, of sorts \u2014 as I\u2019m kind of a political junkie. Only I fear it\u2019s becoming more of an unhealthy addiction. I have an app on my phone called \u201cFlipboard\u201d that lets me quickly flip through the latest stories. It\u2019s become a constant habit! <\/p>\n
So, this week I resolved to go without political news completely. I would refrain from anything political, and then write about it in case you want to try it, too. Here\u2019s how it went:
\n<\/p>\n
Monday, 5:33 a.m. \u2014\u00a0Woke up in cold sweat. The feeling I missed something. That Twitter was Twittering. That headlines were \u2026 well, whatever they do. That out there, in the great unknown, something big was happening and I needed to know about it! I heard Darth Vader\u2019s voice in my head: \u201cBrian, come to the dark side! Use your phone.\u201d \u201cFATHER \u2026 NOOOOO!\u201d I screamed, which woke my wife. She mumbled, \u201cthere you go again,\u201d and drifted back to sleep. I reminded myself about my resolution, slapped myself a couple of times and buried my head under the pillow. This was off to a REALLY good start! <\/p>\n
6:35 a.m. \u2013 Both my morning papers led with political stories. Great! They were sitting on the kitchen counter. I heard that song from \u201cThe Jungle Book\u201d when Kaa the python tries to eat Mowgli by singing, \u201cTrust in Me.\u201d The newspapers were singing to me! I chewed on my knuckle and tried to come to my senses. \u201cThey\u2019re not singing! They\u2019re just newsprint and ink. It\u2019s impossible. No \u2026 they\u2019re probably using telepathy instead! Trying to put wisdom straight into my brain.\u201d It went on like this for a while until I decided I needed coffee \u2026 and to put the Crisis Hotline on speed dial.<\/p>\n
6:59 a.m. \u2014\u00a0I felt like I was reaching critical mass. I didn\u2019t know who to trust anymore. I felt like the whole world was out there changing and I was missing it. Like everyone knows something, and they\u2019re laughing at me. Maybe Anthony Scaramucci is back!!!<\/p>\n
7:02 a.m. \u2013 I cracked. I was on the floor of the living room crying while flipping through political stories, hungry for more. My wife and daughter stared at me, shaking their heads. I heard my daughter say, \u201cThere he goes again. Knew he couldn\u2019t resist the power of the Dark Side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It doesn\u2019t matter what you are \u2014\u00a0Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, left, right, center, North By Northwest, slightly off \u2014\u00a0chances are you could use a break from politics. We all could. If there\u2019s one thing that can bring us together as a nation, it\u2019s that we collectively need a vacation from ourselves. Or at least our government. Or the shenanigans of our government. Because it\u2019s too much, right? And it would be good to get some time away. To catch our breath. To forget there is such a thing as Washington (aka, Hootenannyville.) Which is why I decided to get away from it by going cold turkey on politics this week. It would be good for me personally \u2014\u00a0a cleanse, of sorts \u2014 as I\u2019m kind of a political junkie. Only I fear it\u2019s becoming more of an unhealthy addiction. I have an app on my phone called \u201cFlipboard\u201d that lets me quickly flip through the latest stories. It\u2019s become a constant habit! So, this week I resolved to go without political news completely. I would refrain from anything political, and then write about it in case you want to try it, too. Here\u2019s how it went:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-nutshells"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1629,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1628\/revisions\/1629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}