{"id":13950,"date":"2019-09-25T23:45:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T06:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/?p=13950"},"modified":"2019-09-25T23:45:29","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T06:45:29","slug":"5-things-you-dont-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/5-things-you-dont-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things You Don’t Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. Demi Moore isn’t blaming Ashton Kutcher for the threesomes they had during their marriage but it was his idea, not that she’s blaming him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. Brad Pitt has realized that it’s not the roles that matter. What he really wants is to live an interesting life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

3. Tavi Gevinson picks at her face when she’s anxious and has let her assistant take care of her Instagram posts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

4. Rap artists with gang affiliations have to check in with the local gang when they arrive in a new city, or some bad shit will go down.<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. Demi Lovato wants you to accept her cellulite.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All these things are true, according to the Internet. I know them because I clicked on them. I clicked on them because at the time, each one seemed less stupid, pointless, or distressing than the other suggestions thrown up by my cellphone or the New York Times.<\/p>\n

I’ve never clicked on anything about improving my habits at work or at home, about fitness or food, about what successful people do to manage their lives or about relationships. I’ve never clicked on anything to do with finances, careers, credit scores, parenting, or shortcuts to anything.<\/p>\n

Every day, I’m confronted by a thousand ways to lose myself and avoid being present, so I’m learning to skip things that will make me go back to bed. It’s a process, okay? I still make mistakes. I just clicked on the thing about a grandparent in Florida who gave her disabled adult grandchild an overdose of something, because she was worried about dying and leaving him alone. There’s a whole website somewhere that lists the people who were killed this way, in order to honor their truncated lives. This is exactly the type of thing I am drawn to like a moth and must learn to ignore.<\/p>\n

Who started the fucking Five Things lists? Why five? Is it because ten is too many for most people to handle? Five is a reasonable number, if there were things I wanted to know on the fly.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to know five things though. I read stuff about philosophy, depression, addiction, autism, nursing homes, refugees, writers, murderers, artists, and Donald Trump. Ivanka, too. I want to know everything on these subjects. As little kids, my sister and I liked to dig deep holes at the beach, hoping to reach China. I still want to reach China, pretty much. The dream is alive.<\/p>\n

Is there something I’m missing in my pursuit of knowledge and distraction? Let’s hear the five things you<\/em> click on, or refuse to click.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"