How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division

by Elif Shafak

If wanting to be heard is one side of the coin, the other side is being willing to listen.

The moment we stop listening to diverse opinions is also when we stop learning.

Because the truth is we don’t learn much from sameness and monotony. We usually learn from differences.

human being, every human being, is complicated – layers upon layers of ideas, feelings, perceptions, recollections, reactions, desires and dreams.

OURS IS THE AGE of contagious anxiety. A deep and ever deepening worry about the state of the world, and our own place in it, or placelessness.

It follows that we should stop judging and shaming ourselves for not being the always happy and fulfilled citizens to which we are told we must aspire.

apathy is a combination of many emotions: anxiety, disillusionment, bewilderment, fatigue, resentment

mix them fast, mix them hard and you end up with pervasive paralysis, lack of feeling, numbness.

When we become more engaged, more informed about all that is happening, however, we feel more disappointed, anxious, angry, surrounded with negative feelings in the face of current news and fast-moving events. It is too much to deal with. We crave simplicity; we retreat into ourselves, into the familiar. This is a dangerous moment because it is when the populist demagogue enters into the picture, promising to simplify things for us. Here is one of our main challenges: How do we simultaneously remain engaged and manage to remain sane?

We live in an age in which there is too much information, less knowledge and even less wisdom. That ratio needs to be reversed. We definitely need less information, more knowledge, and much more wisdom.

is a problem, the endless barrage of information – let alone, misinformation. We cannot process this much, and the truth is, we don’t. In reality, we only skim through the news, scroll up and down our screens, without contemplating, and more importantly, without feeling.

Do not be afraid of complexity. Be afraid of people who promise an easy shortcut to simplicity.