memes

This is an extremely reasonable clarification. I am sorry if I misconstrued your original comment, which it really looks like I did. You're managing your own experience of the current media climate, in order to stay rationally informed, without bombarding your consciousness with too much reality, all at once. That's more than fair.

My position = we all bear a responsibility to soberly and rationally grasp as much of our horrible reality as we can, so that we can exercise whatever power we have, to help the world suck less.

Sadly, I do see people out there, who go whole hog, advocating the "stick your head in the sand" mentality. I get the awful feeling that some of these people would read Fahrenheit 451 and go "this Montag guy is a real Doomer. His wife and her friends have the right attitude. Why pay attention to all this gloomy stuff, man? Just go with the flow."

To put it in modern terms, the whole point of the novel is that Montag becomes "woke." He starts out as a complacent, vapid, uncaring person, but becomes more and more aware of the true reality of his surroundings. The salient point being: that transformation sure as hell doesn't make him HAPPIER, but it does make him more responsible and ethical, in his behavior.

Being a fictional protagonist, Guy Montag responds in a way that entirely disrupts his life. I'm not asking that anyone sacrifice their way of life. Like you, I'm saying there's a definite balance point between willfully ignoring reality and becoming too addicted to angst, and we should ideally reach for that balance.