Overcoming Frustration and Misery in Humanity’s Age of Wonders

An unidentified reporter near the front lines of a conflict. This photo is from a website that offers PTSD counseling for reporters, for they are often as vulnerable to the mental and emotional scars of war as are the soldiers whose sacrifices they record. (Ardent Counseling Center)

“If it bleeds, it leads.” It means the most horrifying stuff goes on the front page of papers and dominates the first ten minutes of any news broadcast. In the media, the only thing that sells better than sex is blood and death.

And it’s making us miserable when by any rational measure, humans alive today should be the happiest in all human history. After all, we’re not just living in an age of technological wonders, but we’re living longer, healthier lives and — in relative terms — experiencing less war than ever before.

A strike by Israel using what may be white phosphorus against Palestinians, though the article does not mention its use. I am not knowledgeable enough about munitions to say with any degree of certainty. This photo is from 2018. (CNN)

War

Take that last phrase for example. Our news is chock-full of the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, not to mention the near-constant warnings about China invading Taiwan. The worst war currently raging is the one we’re hearing the least about: the civil war in Sudan.

Sounds really bad, right? But relative to world population, I believe it is accurate to say that as a whole, humanity has been more peaceful since the end of World War II than at any other 70-year stretch of time in human history.