Our next question comes from Steven. Steven says, "I'm very interested in the deep life, but sometimes sitting down to do it is tough while wildfires, social and political turmoil, and a deadly virus are ever-present and overwhelming. Is it wrong to shut off the outside world when the outside world needs so much help?" So Steven, I think it's a good question.

I think when you when you're using the phrase "deep life," you actually mean something more specific. I think you're talking about, in general, doing one thing at a time, having a small number of things you really focus on, and getting lost in those activities, versus an approach to life where you're more constantly plugged into the hive mind of what's going on, what's the latest news, what's happening in the world.

You see someone like me who maybe doesn't use social media and just reads an old-fashioned newspaper, and you think, "Okay, you're not fully up to speed with what's going on, and this somehow seems worrisome," or it just seems very difficult to do because all this stuff going on out there in the world really pulls at your attention.

It's a very timely question. There's a lot going on in the world right now that can be constantly pulling at your attention. The media, of course, does us no favors. It is in their interest to pull our attention as much as possible, and so they will push everything. I'm using "they." It doesn't matter who we're talking about here.

They will push everything in a way that's alarm bells going. It is constant emergency alarm all the day. Omicron is going to set a forest fire that's going to steal your identity before pushing your democracy into an authoritarian dictatorship. It all is just going together, and it's all just terrible.

Here's the reality, Stephen. You cannot function if you're bathing in that. I mean, I have serious, empathetic concerns for professional journalists right now that have to be marinated in that world because it's their job. I think we should be thinking about post-traumatic stress-style benefits for these journalists right now because the drumbeat, the negativity, and the alarmism, and everything that's out there, it overloads the brain.

Our brain can't handle that much, and so you do have to be, I think, quite careful in how you let this into your life. If you are constantly consuming information, especially coming from the internet, especially information that has gone through the attention-centric filters of tools like social media, you will fry your brain.

If you are, God forbid, receiving coronavirus news through Twitter all day long, you are going to be digging out a bunker, and you're never going to leave it. If you are, God forbid, looking at conversations on social media to be your barometer of what the political discussion is like in this country, you are going to be, again, digging that bunker even deeper because civilization is about to end.

It's going to fry your brain. You've got to be way more careful about this. You have to be way more selective about it. So what I would argue is that as part of going through your process of trying to intentionally cultivate a deep life, part of that should be figuring out, "How do I want to consume information about the world?

Let's get specific about it, and let's do it with intention." You can put this, if you want, if you're using my bucket system where you figure out the buckets that are important to your life and then go over each of them, this could go in various places. The community bucket, I think, makes sense because you want to know what's going on in the community writ large to be a citizen of the world.

Be incredibly specific and careful about how this information comes in. I'm very, very careful about it. So I look at the paper, newspaper, every day, so it's not like I'm going to miss a very important world-changing event. I can see it. But on almost everything else, I have to be very careful to titrate the information that comes into my world.

Like if it comes to coronavirus, for example, you know, as listeners know, I spent about a year or so doing a daily newsletter for my family and friends where I filtered through a lot of information and tried to give them a less alarmist, more fact-based presentation of what's going on.

After the vaccines came out, I stopped that newsletter because, honestly, I thought it was more healthy for the people I know now that they weren't facing immediate potential grave harm to focus on living other parts of their life. But in doing that, I became really closely acquainted with the various sources of news, what doctors really got it, what experts were non-alarmist but very accurate, really knew what they were talking about.

I've interviewed some of these or some articles I've written as well. And so now for coronavirus news, for example, there's a small number of people that a couple times a week I check in to get their take. And you know what that's done to my stress level? Dropped it all the way down, right?

I know probably more about this still than most people I know because it's kind of ironic if you just bathe in Twitter, you're all over the place and other types of things come in and affect you and political biases or where you happen to live or your anxiety, natural anxiety levels, and you end up in random places and how you think about what's going on.

But I'm very specific. A couple days a week, a couple experts, good, I know what's going on, I'm out. You can do this about almost any area of domestic or international news, and Stephen, that's what I'm going to recommend for you. Make this part of your plan to live a deep life is to be incredibly intentional about how you bring in information.

You can know what's going on in the world without having to marinate in a frenetic stew of anxiety. And it's not only possible, I think it is critical because we can't keep living this way. It's not good for you. It's not going to make you a better citizen. There is never going to be a case, Stephen, where you know a tweet will come through that says if Stephen can get this tweet in the next 15 minutes, this forest fire can get put out.

And you missed it and you screwed that whole part of Australia that burned. Never going to happen. You'll be fine. The news on Tuesday will be fine even if you missed it on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Hearing from one non-alarmist expert, here's my take on what's going on, will bring you as up to speed as if you followed 50 Twitter feeds five times a day, right?

So cut back, be intentional. I think that is the only way to live deeply in a world of so much anxiety-producing information.