Oh how quickly the beast tries to escape if only a small gap is left in the door of it’s cage!

Tonight we had a family dinner to celebrate a bunch of achievements my daughters have managed to reach over the past few days.

The table we were seated at, well my seat at least, was directly facing a television screen with the news on.

Whilst I think I did a pretty good job of ignoring the screen and instead interacting with my family, I know I could have done better.

What the f4ck’s with that anyway? Why the hell do they need to have TV’s in a restaurant? Perhaps I need to change the restaurants we go to.

I found myself thinking as images flashed across the screen “I wonder what’s happening there?” or “what’s that big bunch of cops and flashing lights all about?” etc etc

Perhaps it’s that inbuilt mechanicisim within all of us that takes notice of potential dangers, the one that has given us our instinct and intuition and has helped us to survive for hundreds of thousands of years in one form or another.

Perhaps that’s why we’re so inexplicably drawn to the news as a species. Cops, flashing lights, arrests, riots, military actions etc all pose a potential threat to us (at least a perceived threat) so it makes sense that we are drawn to the news.

Have you ever noticed how if someone yells out in a crowd or makes a scene, people turn around to watch and listen?

That’s our inbuilt self preservation kicking in. If there’s no direct threat to our person, most of us keep walking.

The funny thing is though, when you‘re watching the news, how much of it directly affects us? Not much at all - if any of it. So why do we get the urge to watch it or read it so much?

I wish, as a society, we focused on the issues that directly affect us like food quality in our schools, mental health issues and awareness, youth sex education, deceptive food packaging, defensive driving, our binge drinking culture, the plight of our farmers or Aboriginal rights etc

There are so many things that deserve our attention and the nightly, major TV network, mainstream, political and agenda driven news is certainly not one of them in my opinion.

So whilst I was a little distracted at dinner tonight, it was a good lesson in keeping the beast in it’s cage because once it’s out, it’s unpredictable, difficult to control and has an insatiable appetite.