"Ignore it and it will go away" is a piece of advice I've always ignored; but it has never gone away.
Despite its profoundly evident untruth, this insipid little injunction endures. If it is supposed to provide comfort and assurance in times of stress, it fails miserably. I would even suggest that's it's superficiality adds insult to injury.
Alas, certain things are impossible to ignore, no matter how deep and impenetrable the sand into which you stick your head. You try not to think about such things but there they are nonetheless, undeniable and demanding attention, like a skid mark on the underpants of your existence.
Take, for example, reality television. I refuse to this wretched form of entertainment, yet via some kind of digital osmosis of the airwaves I possess an almost intimate knowledge of its various protagonists and antagonists. Indeed, one such reality television personality, whose mind-numbingly vacuous show I made a particular point of avoiding, is now President of the United States of America.
I tried to ignore the recent election but it did not go away.
It was the ne plus ultra of reality television. Kim Kardashian's lecherous and sleazy uncle versus one of those cold-hearted, cutthroat mothers who groom their browbeaten children for endless Irish step-dancing competitions. A ubiquitous train wreck of a national spectacle beyond the depraved dreams of the most unscrupulous of realty TV production companies.
And its Grand Guignol sequel is on every channel with no hope of anyone sane finding the remote to turn it off.
