UPLINK: 2020-04-27 Write your own narrative

There is no other news in the world right now. What was in the news before Coronavirus? What was life like before Coronavirus? Did it all matter? When all this is over I plan to watch a lot less news. I'm currently glued to my screen, searching for bits of news, little hints of what's to come. This guessing game is not healthy. It makes you realise how unimportant the news is in "normal times". Why are people so obsessed? When you look around you at your little patch of land and you small circle of friends, what news in the past 10 years really had that much impact on your life? That's not to say you should be uninformed. But there really is something healthy about tuning out of the mainstream news, even for a day.

Politicians, scientists, police, healthcare workers and the media have never had so much attention and funding

Good for them, but the rest of us are suffering. They are making this up as they go along, they have no option for this as there is no rulebook. The politicians are writing the news and they are guided by the science. There is no such thing as "The Science" as the politicians put it. Science has many moving parts, with many unknowns, counter arguments, assumptions and is often wrong. They can also take "The Science" that best fits their agenda and runs with that particular scenario. "Guided by the science" is a very clever term by the politicians for for putting the accountability elsewhere, whilst they maintain complete control of the decision making.

Some of the greatest thinkers of all time had a different narrative

Some of the biggest leaps in humanity have come from people individuals who questioned the mainstream narrative. Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Galilei, Dawn - all of these men wrote their own narrative. They did this in many circumstances against the standard thinking for the day. These people are now celebrated as some of the greatest thinkers of all time. Yet at the time they were ridiculed; Galilei going to trial for daring to suggest the earth circled the sun and was not the centre of the universe. Today, anyone questioning the mainstream news or narrative is given the similar treatment - tinfoil hat, conspiracy theorist, unpatriotic, or evil. Some things never change in that respect, but there is nothing wrong with holding alternate life views.

Write your own narrative

News overload is a real thing for me. That's why it's nice to take time out and share some thoughts through writing. Just spending time putting words on a page. Creating my own news, my own narrative helps me get back in control a bit. When you capture your own thoughts you can share an alternative narrative or a different perspective. You can think critically of the mainstream news and how the facts are being presented. Writing your own news doesn't need to be long high quality pieces of journalism. Small soundbites or microblogging is equally applicable. What you write doesn't need to be published, write for yourself first and foremost.

I plan to try and keep writing every day. Some days I may publish my thoughts publicly, others days perhaps not. During this time of lockdown it's natural to be more introspective and that leads me to write. More people should do this. There is something to be said for writing your own narrative. It should be embraced as something admirable, sophisticated and smart rather than ridiculed.