When I was younger — and I’m talking middle school age — I prided myself on keeping up with the news. I was in fifth grade when 9/11 happened, and I can recall the surge in keeping everyone up-to-date with current events. Being the kid who watched the news was the newest form of nerdy-chic back then.

I don’t remember how much time had passed between my daily sit downs first with Tom Brokaw and then Brian Williams, but one day I turned the news off. I stopped listening to radio news and avoided newspapers like the plague.

I remember the events surrounding my news shut down: An American had just been beheaded in the Middle East. This was not new news, but my mother’s report of a radio host playing the man’s dying screams for his audience because “the people needed to hear” scared me away from media for months.

Eventually, I returned.

In the past few weeks, I’ve found myself turning the TV off. My morning commute is usually accompanied by NPR but lately has been leaning more towards rock and podcasts about fictional towns and dog parks. I’ve avoided news websites. I don’t even know if Brian Williams still hosts NBC Nightly anymore.

I just can’t take it. Around the time Darren Wilson was acquitted, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t listen to reports of injustice here and around the world. I couldn’t hear about death for another minute. I couldn’t read any more statistics of how much we’re messing up our own world.

I briefly returned to the news, only to hear that yet another jury acquitted yet another killer. I promptly turned it off again.

I’m not proud of this. I hate the fact that I am finding ignorance far preferable to keeping up with the world. I hate that I am learning firsthand just how blissful willful ignorance can be.

In a way though, it helps me understand. I suddenly understand why so many people stay uninformed and why so many people stay less informed because they don’t want to dig deeper into the mess that is our daily world. My breaks from the news may have helped me understand why people often choose ignorance.

But they have also helped me understand why remaining in the dark is not right. Staying uninformed is not the way to go about change. It is not the way to fix the problems the world presents us and, sometimes, we create for ourselves.

We can’t fight injustice if we don’t know about it. We can’t move forward if we’re stuck in our own little bubble.

As painful as it sometimes is, we have to keep ourselves aware. Taking a break is one thing, but ignoring the world around us is just plain stupid.

When that mental break becomes an act of ignoring or covering up the wrongs in the world, we enter a dangerous territory. Grand Forks is a great example.

There are many good things about Grand Forks. We have a thriving art community, a wonderful university and are fairly sheltered from the recession.

But we are not a perfect community. I’ve witnessed overt racism occur both on campus and off. I’ve spoken with the homeless population, which is larger than many people realize. I know how many women fear walking alone, and how many have had their fears realized.

We are not perfect, but we like to pretend we are. We are simply an example of a larger phenomenon.

Yes, we need days off, but we can’t stay away forever. We, here in lovely secluded North Dakota, often forget the world is not the idyllic painting many of us are used to — Grand Forks included.

As much as we individuals and residents want to pretend, life is not a Norman Rockwell image; it never was. It may hurt, and it may hurt a lot, but if we don’t stay aware, we can’t make change. Awareness is painful, but it’s far better to be aware of the fire than to pretend the world isn’t burning down around you.

Kjerstine Trooien is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].