Staying Human in the Age of Outrage
Most mornings, my partner Heidi and I begin the day the way so many people do — still half-asleep, scrolling through our phones to see what has exploded overnight. It’s a small confession, and certainly not a spiritual practice I’d recommend to anyone. Within minutes, the world comes rushing in — the headlines from Washington, the endless scroll of social media, the noise, the anger, the heartbreak. It’s astonishing how quickly a single headline can tighten the chest or darken the mood before we’ve even finished our first cup of coffee. And yet, in that swirl of reactivity, something in me also remembers: I can begin differently — not with the news of the world, but with the simple presence of being alive.
Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh once wrote, “Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.” Another wisdom person once said, “We are not our thoughts. Similarly, we are not the news we consume. When engaging with current events, try to observe without letting it dictate your emotions.”
In moments of digital overwhelm, these words feel like a lifeline. To pause — even for a breath — is to reclaim our humanity from the feed. Mindfulness doesn’t ask us to turn away from the world’s suffering; it simply asks that we meet it from a place of steadiness rather than reactivity. When I catch myself swept into outrage, I whisper: I am not the news I consume. That single sentence opens a doorway back to presence — to the body, the breath, and the quiet world still here beyond the screen.
Philosopher Elaine Scarry reminds us, “Injuring another person is only possible when we do not fully see or recognize that person.” And she adds, “When we behold the beautiful, we learn to be attentive to the world, and when we are attentive to the world, we notice injustice.”
These words name something essential: injustice grows in the soil of blindness. The constant churn of the news can numb us into abstraction — statistics, polls, slogans — until we forget that behind every headline is a human being. The contemplative gaze asks us to see again, to linger, to behold. To attend to the ordinary — a cup of coffee, a child’s face, the late-day light on a wall — is not to turn away from the world’s pain, but to remember what’s at stake. Every act of true seeing is a quiet refusal to dehumanize.
The contemplative path doesn’t promise escape from the noise. It invites us to meet it differently. When we pause, breathe, and see clearly, we begin to recognize that the madness “out there” and the restlessness “in here” are not separate. The same mind that scrolls and judges can also soften and return. Each breath is a small act of resistance. Each moment of seeing — without naming, without fixing — is a way of staying human in the age of outrage.
So when the next headline burns across your screen, stop. Breathe. Look up. Notice the light falling through the room. Feel your feet on the floor. Remember what is still whole. And whisper quietly: I am not the news I consume. I am the witnessing presence behind it all.
There is an unspeakable secret I keep discovering again and again: a fundamental goodness surrounds us, though we rarely see it. It glimmers in the most ordinary places — a quiet street at sunrise, the glance of a stranger, the rhythm of breath. Wisdom, the old teachers say, announces her presence every dawn, yet we hurry by, half-awake.
Even so, goodness abides — patient, luminous, waiting for our attention. Let us not forget that we were created both one and many, placed here in the midst of this turmoil as awareness, as joy. We are here. I am here. To dwell, even for a moment, in the stillness of that goodness — the radiant center from which all things arise — is enough for today.
