This is what you must know: Media is a bizarre and harrowing but somehow weirdly delicious mistress. On the one hand, it is mandatory and beneficial in innumerable ways, and the basic rule goes that if you don't watch the news or read at least one major paper or skim through some assortment of news blogs and check in with the world on a semiregular basis, well, it can be argued that you are doing a terrifically lousy job at being an informed human and you have little right to pule and bitch because willful ignorance is just as bad as, well, plain ol' stupidity.

On the other hand, excessive immersion in this swirling blood-drenched hyperbolic world of goofily inflated mayhem will only leave you deeply unsatisfied and angry and potentially alcoholic, not to mention nauseated and mistrustful of all mankind everywhere. Except maybe Tibetans. And the Kurds. Man have they been screwed.

But here's the thing: The wise ones tell us that whatever you focus on, expands. Wherever you direct your attention and wherever you put your energy and your heart and your concern, that thing will suddenly seem bigger and more important and potentially all-consuming. Is your attention excessively on death and corruption at the expense of laughter and perspective? That is your reality. Is it all about perky happy bunnies and tofu sunsets at the expense of harsher realities? This is your choice.

You cannot always choose what sort of slings and arrows the world hurls at your heart, nor should you try to avoid them all in some weeping lament at the state of it all. But no matter the blood and no matter the mayhem and no matter the hyperbole, you can always choose how you'll respond...