Unplugged
I Stopped Watching the News. That Was a Year Ago.
It was Election Day 2024. I remember standing in the kitchen, phone face-down on the counter, and thinking — I cannot do this anymore.
Not the election. The everything. The constant intake of things I couldn’t affect. The scroll. The refresh. The low-grade hum of urgency that had just become the background noise of being alive.
I’d been carrying it for years without noticing how heavy it was.
That day, I made a decision. No news websites. No news podcasts. No news radio. I kept CBS Sports. I kept Splendid Table. I kept classical music. Food, home, sports — that was the new perimeter.
HGTV and Food Network replaced cable news as background. I spent that time building recipes, learning the science behind ingredients, building Remixology.
The First Five Days
The hardest part wasn’t the news itself. It was my fingers.
After Wordle each morning, they’d automatically start typing URLs I’d visited for years. Pure muscle memory. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I was already there. It took about five days for that reflex to die.
And then — nothing. I stopped thinking about it entirely.
What I Missed
A year later, I can tell you exactly what I didn’t know was happening.
The vote counts from that election. Destructive fires a few hours from home. The ongoing weight of conflicts halfway around the world. A conclave. Cardinals. White smoke, then black, then white again.
I found out we’d turned the clocks back last fall at dinner table, like it was old news — because for everyone else, it was.
I nodded. Adjusted. Moved on.
What I Gained
My head is lighter. That’s the simplest way to say it.
More peaceful. More present. More intentional about where my attention goes — and more aware of how much attention I was giving away before, for free, to things that gave nothing back.
I spend that energy differently now. Friends. Family. Something to look forward to. Something I’m building that might actually help someone else.
Occasionally someone asks why I’m so quiet about what’s going on.
“I’m just observing,” I tell them. “Taking the whole thing in.”
The truth is I’m just not consuming it. There’s a difference — and it took stepping away to feel it.
The truth? I’m free.
365 Days
November 5, 2025. One year.
I made my goal. And I’m not going back.
The news will always be there — spinning, urgent, insisting it needs your attention right now, just this once, just for a second. That machine doesn’t stop.
But my life is here. Right here, in this kitchen, on this mountain, with the people I love and the work I care about.
I chose this. On purpose. Every day since.
Whatever you water grows.
Follow the remix on IG @remixology