2018 Declared 'Year of the Year'
'I'm honestly fed up with all the bad news everywhere. I am not a journalist or an influencer, but I want to use my art to spread some positivity.' 50 positive news stories, illustrated by Mauro Gatti
Happy Friday!
This week I believe in 2018!
This is my last newsletter of 2018 so I'd like to:
Thank you for your contribution. Thank you.
Share my favourite happenings from the year.
In no particular order:
Finding Frisbee, and all the friends I’ve made through Ultimate in London, Bristol and Athens.
Travelling overland through Europe to Greece, then volunteering with refugees, eating falafel, and gazing at the stars.
Thighs of Steel, both cycling Ljubljana to Sofia in the summer and joining the organising team for 2019.
Writing an application for a postgraduate degree course, and another for an adventure internship. I don’t know why it took me so long to realise, but writing applications is a wonderful way of clarifying what I want with skin in the game.
Spending time with family and friends: family reunions in Oxon and the Isle of Wight, living with close friends in Bristol, meeting new friends – and new family!
Walking in the wilds of Scotland, Wales and Dartmoor, taking my first steps into a new professional sideline.
Reading and writing. As you know, I’ve read some spectacular books this year. Writing the second series of Foiled was a blast, and my Happy Friday newsletter has been a constant spring of inspiration.
How was 2018 for you? Do you look back and remember a year full of bad news, bad news about Brexit, Trump and Russia?
In which case, I'll leave you with a quote:
“[The news] doesn’t relate to the ordinary person’s existence, any more than a crime thriller… But we are competing for people’s time and their attention, and the reality is that bad news does sell.”
Tony Gallagher, Daily Mail Editor (2015) [LINK]
As grown-ups, we’re made to feel like it is part of our duty as citizens to ‘stay on top of the news’. But who among us truly believes that what we’re sold as ‘the news’ is actually giving us the tools we need to fulfil our duties?
Academic Jodie Jackson has found that regular news reporting is disempowering, making us feel that our social problems are ‘inevitable and endless, rather than solvable and temporary’.
Cathrine Gyldensted, a masters candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, found that people’s positive affect (something like happiness) fell after reading ‘classical’ news reporting.
If you feel ready to chuck in your usual news sources, I’ve got a few suggestions for replacements:
Books and libraries. Set your own long-form agenda. Learn something new and change the future. [Why Everyone Should Watch Less News And Read More Books Instead by Ryan Holiday]
Friends – yes, friends! Whether it’s their new baby, a job vacancy at their company, or an invite to a barbecue next weekend, it’s rare that our friends don’t offer news of real, immediate value to our lives.
Strangers. Or, as they are sometimes known: fellow citizens. We could all do with hanging out together more often.
Community politics. Politics isn’t something that happens out in make-believe world of ‘the news’. It something that happens right now, on the street. (Okay, so I’m still buzzing that the council recently fixed a faulty street light outside my house, but I do think this is true.)
Go for a long walk outside in nature. What's the news with the starlings, with the streams, or with the sunset?
An afternoon nap. Sometimes the best thing you can do to help is have a snooze.
The Future Crunch newsletter. Try their roundup of 2018 for size – tagline: The world didn’t fall apart this year. You were just getting your news from the wrong places.
Positive News magazine and/or blog. If you are looking for more positive sources of ‘news’, then this list by Jodie Jackson will help. But honestly: do you really need them?
As someone who hasn’t read 'the news' for two years, I promise that you really don’t have to stay on top of everything. Trust that the important stuff will come to you because it’s important.
In the meantime, read a book, phone a friend, talk to a stranger, go for a walk. You’re free now. Relax.
And I wish you a happy news year!
FICTION-NON-FICTION
Snippets from my reading in the last seven days.
FICTION
Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake (1950)
Titus shifted his gaze and noticed a copse where, drawn back, and turned away a little on their hips, twelve trees looked sideways at one who stood aloof. Its back was to them. There could be no doubt that, with its gaze directed from them it despised the group behind it.
NON-FICTION
The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You? by Dr Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm (2015)
In addition to the TM [Transcendental Meditation] and PSI [Periodic Somatic Inactivity] groups, Jonathan Smith had a passive control group, where participants carried on with their usual lives without engaging in any new activity. ... The results showed that, compared to the passive control, TM and PSI led to significant reduction in anxiety and a more relaxed physiological functioning. However, there were no differences between the TM and PSI groups; they both showed the same level of improvement.
NOTE: PSI was invented by Smith as an active control for Transcendental Meditation and involved nothing more than physical inactivity, while letting the mind 'do whatever it wants'.
I'm off up to London now, to help out with Crisis at Christmas. I wrote about my experience last year, and I'm looking forward with some trepidation to hearing whether the government's rough sleeping strategy has made any impression on the lives of those who care most.
Much love,
- dc
CREDITS
David Charles wrote this newsletter. David is co-writer of BBC Radio sitcom Foiled, and also writes for The Bike Project, Elevate and Thighs of Steel. He can be found at davidcharles.info and on Twitter @dcisbusy
ESA’s Mars Express mission recently photographed the Korolev crater on Mars, filled almost to the brim with water ice.