Certainly it's easy to overestimate how much information have actually picked up about what's going on. I had a couple of conversations with friends this week where I mentioned America's torturing, and no-one seemed to have heard anything about it, despite its prominence everywhere I have been looking. Most people have their heads down attending to what's close to them and huge news stories can pass them by. With some other friends I mentioned that I was having trouble managing my anger when I think of Dick Cheney, and it became clear to me that they have only the fuzziest idea who Dick Cheney is.

The question of what to attend to in life is an important and tricky one. A lot of people settle on ignoring the news unless they are forced to pay attention, which I don't think is ideal, but I can understand the urge. We're told to attend to so many things that we can end up letting our lives slip by while we worry about Dick Cheney or whatever. At one extreme you can end up ignoring your own life, while at the other you can end up being ignorant of things that make a difference to everyone's life. And that's just considering world events and politics - when you consider how many other calls for attention there are in life it really does become difficult to know how to balance.

My anger about US torture is doing me no good. But I don't think the best answer to that, for me, is to ignore it. It's a challenge I need to learn to live with.