Why waste time on Ukraine war? Focus on your own future instead

By David McElroy · February 24, 2022

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, I eagerly watched every move. The airstrikes and explosions were exciting. The constant updates on progress were addictive. For the first time in history, a person on the other side of the world could sit at home and watch people being killed on live television.

I can’t tell you now why I watched. There was nothing I could do about what was going on. The information was useless to me. Even if something I saw changed my mind about anything, what was I going to do about it?

I’m thinking about that today as Russian troops invade Ukraine. I’m not watching, but almost everybody I know is glued to the coverage of this bloody and outrageous invasion. Why are they watching? Because they’ve been brainwashed to believe responsible people “stay informed.”

The truth is that wars have become entertainment. All “news” is now entertainment and political theater. I’ve learned not to waste my time and attention on things I can’t control — and I hope you will learn this lesson which it took me way too long to learn.

I’m not minimizing the significance of what’s happening right now in Ukraine. This is an outrageous and immoral invasion. On an emotional level, I desperately wish someone would strike back against the Russian bear and defend the Ukrainians. I would love to see Vladimir Putin humiliated and stripped of power.

What Putin is doing is very similar to what Adolph Hitler did at the start of World War II. Hitler had German troops seize more and more territory around Germany, quite confident that nobody would stop him. He took the Sudetenland, then all of Czechoslovakia. Then it was Austria. Then Poland.

Hitler’s propaganda explained at each step why he was right to do what he did. He explained his aggression to the German people and they mostly believed his lies.

In 2014, Putin likewise stole the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, and he paid no price for it. Today, he is just taking his aggression to its logical conclusion. Just as Hitler justified his invasions by claiming the lands he invaded were historically German, Putin is now claiming that Ukraine is traditionally Russian territory.

All of this is evil and wrong. The lesson — if you didn’t already know — is that Putin is a dictator and he lies constantly to justify doing whatever he wants to do. You can also reasonably conclude that permanent peace is pure fantasy when politicians are allowed to accumulate power with which to attack their neighbors.

If you need to take 10 minutes and brush up on the history of Ukraine and why this Russian invasion is based on lies, go ahead. It won’t take you long to learn everything you need to know.

But once you’ve done that — hopefully from books or some other print source — turn your television off and quit watching what’s going on in Ukraine right now.

There’s nothing you can do about it. Whatever happens there — terrible things, most likely — are going to happen no matter what you think. And the time you waste on a war you can’t control is time which you can’t spend on your own life.

We really are trained to believe that we’re supposed to watch such things. When you were in school, you probably got credit for knowing what was happening in the rest of the world every day. But all you’re doing is entertaining yourself.

The flow of up-to-the-minute information which we have come to call news is essentially meaningless, but there are powerful forces which want you to pay attention.

Politicians want you to keep watching because what you see inflames your emotions and make you easier for them to control. The big media companies want you to watch because they count on your attention to allow them to keep selling advertising.

If you’ve been watching the invasion, think about what you’re doing. What’s your purpose? What will you do with whatever information you gain? Is there anything you can do about it?

No, you have no real purpose. There’s nothing you can do with the information. And there’s nothing you can do about the war.

The future is bearing down on us like a speeding locomotive — and most of us have done little or nothing to prepare for our own future. Shift your attention. Deal with your own needs. Fix the problems in your own life.

Turn your television off and leave it off. You don’t need any “news.”

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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