In praise of newspapers

I'm not saying take a newspaper every day. 

But the brain is about inputs and outputs.

We need fresh inputs to stimulate us.

And we need them delivered in a reasonably random way that is relevant to modern life.

You're not necessarily going to get that from the feeds you select on your mobile phone. Because you selected them.

(Although I'd accept Twitter may well be a pretty useful signposter of stuff you'd never have found).

You will get to a large extent from books but not with the serrated edge edge of what's going on in the world. (And that may be no bad thing).

You will get it from conversations with other people but not the people who spend more time looking at their phone than they do listening. They can only repeat for you...relay. 

That may be handy but they don't add value. 

They don't work out the subtext, the process, the points of light, flair and subtlety. The art of life. They offer a triumph of comms but a failure of communication.

They are people who are not with people but have people located nearby, accessorized..annexed. Ghosts.

Why not take a newspaper? 

Don't waste too much time reading it for god's sake. I am not recommending more than one weekend paper per week to flick through so you can interrogate yourself on your opinion of the day. 

Work something out.

Ask yourself what a story means to you, what it tells you about what's going on outside your front door or outside your shores, inform what you feel about life. Your life perhaps or modern life in general.

Few things do that as well as a newspaper and a paper paper facilitates you kicking back, looking up and away, tapping your pencil on your teeth and wondering what it all means....in the brief moments you would otherwise have clicked on a cat video.

Then when you are done, get it in the blue bin as soon as you can.