Should you avoid the news? Stoics say so.

There's been a tsunami of opinion online and I tend to stick to the left lane of my own socialist echo chamber on LinkedIn, which is generally right of centre.

In the past 4 months, the Labour landslide has whipped people on here into a self-righteous fervour, where 14 years of self-serving corruption has been reformed by many into some sort of economic golden age.

In the past 2 weeks, the Budget from Rachel Reeves has raised collective hackles and I blithely slipped into sparring armour to do battle with the many dissenting voices.

This week, the election of Donald Trump has been similarly polarising, with many fawning over his success and others decrying his renaissance.

In the past two years, I've tried to adopt a stoic mindset and one of these is to ignore the news.

Why?

Because to stoics, things are inside our control or outside our control and our only duty, they argue, is to temper our emotional response to events, or even ignore them.

With this in mind, I've held back (apart from the odd thumbs up emoji on posts I approve of) to ignore the white noise of labelling the Republican campaign as a marketing masterclass. I've successfully ignored the posters on here banging on about Inheritance Tax on farms, and supporting Jeremy Clarkson - a man who punched a TV director for his dinner being too cold, unless we forget.

I've just back from 3 days in the Lake District which was a perfect cloudy antidote to politics on here. I got up early and worked both days and spent time, of an evening, writing social media posts and doing some web design tasks. The only wading in I've done in 3 days is crossing culverts and streams with the company and rural beauty largely making me forget my keyboard political values.

What I did do, whilst there, however, was think deeply about why people are so tribal, including myself.

I grew up in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and saw at close quarters, the Miners' Strike and the subsequent decimation of that industry by Margaret Thatcher. I saw council estates change as tenants bought their homes at cut price costs and housing availability shrink.

In later years, I've seen the deterioration of public services like transport and water / sewage - all sold off to shareholders and PLCs.

In the past 14 years beginning with austerity, through to Brexit, Partygate and Covid-19, mortgage costs exploding, five inept prime ministers now lauded as geniuses next to Keir Starmer (who I've no great admiration for either - nor Corbyn, believe it or not).

But from now on, and whether this will last is debatable and perhaps dubious, I'm not going to doom scroll on LinkedIn, adding my two penn'orth when I see something I disagree with. I'm not going to be watching Musk, Trump, Tate etc (I've deleted X) and feeling the need to add my views.

It's all a waste of energy.

I've realised that it's difficult enough to change yourself, let alone others.

Now don't get me wrong, you're not going to see greige, vanilla, anodyne updates from me - I'll continue to post what I want on any platform I choose.

But instead of getting in arguments with people online, I'm doing one simple thing and that's BLOCK.

I've deleted a lot of people in my personal and professional circles in the past two years - no arguing, no trying to convince others that I think they're wrong.

No.

It's much easier to just zip your gob, and reach for the Block button on all communications.

I only allow access to those now who bring me good vibes, great energy and are genuinely helpful.

And if you're a Tory lover, a Labour hater, a Trump groupie so be it.

I will try not to comment but like Dionne Warwick, scroll on by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO073fekFfA

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