From "The Man Who Knew Too Little" (my emphasis):
At first, the experiment didn’t have a name.
Right after the election, Erik Hagerman decided he’d take a break from reading about the hoopla of politics.
Donald Trump’s victory shook him. Badly. And so Mr. Hagerman developed his own eccentric experiment, one that was part silent protest, part coping mechanism, part extreme self-care plan.
He swore that he would avoid learning about anything that happened to America after Nov. 8, 2016.
“It was draconian and complete,” he said. “It’s not like I wanted to just steer away from Trump or shift the conversation. It was like I was a vampire and any photon of Trump would turn me to dust.”
It was just going to be for a few days. But he is now more than a year into knowing almost nothing about American politics. He has managed to become shockingly uninformed during one of the most eventful chapters in modern American history. He is as ignorant as a contemporary citizen could ever hope to be.
James Comey. Russia. Robert Mueller. Las Vegas. The travel ban. “Alternative facts.” Pussy hats. Scaramucci. Parkland. Big nuclear buttons. Roy Moore.
He knows none of it. To Mr. Hagerman, life is a spoiler.
“I just look at the weather,” said Mr. Hagerman, 53, who lives alone on a pig farm in southeastern Ohio. “But it’s only so diverting.”
He says he has gotten used to a feeling that he hasn’t experienced in a long time. “I am bored,” he said. “But it’s not bugging me.”
It takes meticulous planning to find boredom. Mr. Hagerman commits as hard as a method actor, and his self-imposed regimen — white-noise tapes at the coffee shop, awkward scolding of friends, a ban on social media — has reshaped much of his life.
Extreme as it is, it’s a path that likely holds some appeal for liberals these days — a D.I.Y. version of moving to Canada.
And I've found myself, if not by design, doing something similar lately. Oh, I still read the paper and my usual websites (although less) and watch some CNN and MSNBC, but, as I've been telling people lately, I just can't follow the news like I used to because it's so depressing. (And that includes easing up a little on Twitter.) Trump and the Republicans just do something outrageous practically every day without consequences. It's very discouraging.
So, as a result I've been looking elsewhere, such as learning more about state and local politics, which I have practically ignored since I moved to Chicago 37 years ago. (Why have I never been interested in local politics? Good question; maybe because they're so dirty. But ever since moving back to the city almost four years ago I've gotten interested in city and state issues. Go figure.)
I've also been reading more books, and ones not having anything to do with politics. Lately I've reread The Magnificent Ambersons; read Trumpocracy, by David Frum (okay, that one's about politics); and am currently in the middle of A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway (whom I've never been able to read before) and The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond by Michio Kaku, a scientist whom I'd seen on Chicago Tonight. (Excellent show, by the way.) This last one is especially important for me as I have never read a book about science before (I don't think) so it's really expanding my horizons. (If you've never read a book like this I urge you to give it a try; it's incredibly readable and the author is fascinating.)
And when I'm not reading I'm binge-watching all the TV shows I've missed in the last few years. I'm now caught up on Transparent and The Americans and am currently watching Downton Abbey and Divorce (in real time). Twin Peaks could be next.
So maybe Donald Trump is accidentally doing me a favor. Maybe I'm finally getting out of the weeds of national politics and stretching a little. I'm not completely ignorant like the guy in that Times article, but it feels good to be a little less frustrated at every outrage coming out of Washington these days.
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