I got some sad news today.  It happens.  Hell, if you turn on the news at any given point in the day right now, you'll get a pretty heavy dose of tragically depressing news.  If you aren't getting that coverage by the way, and I'm primarily talking about Ferguson here (though the Middle East and ISIS are closing fast), you are watching the wrong news.  That's just a little unsolicited advise.

Many of you know I'm writing a book.  If you didn't before, you do now.  Its genre is comedic non-fiction. This detail is important because as someone invested in his everyday funniness, getting bummed out in the morning does not facilitate a productive work day.  So, off to Facebook I went to find just the right flavor of cheeriness.  I found this:

This Vine Of A Tiny Piglet Prancing Through Grass Will Be The Best 6 Seconds Of Your Day

Check it out.

Pretty awesome right?  And thus far into my day, the video's tagline was accurate in its prediction.  The problem I've discovered, however, is that these Vines, gifs, and other short videos only provide six seconds of relief, both literally and figuratively.  And, since humans are adaptive animals, we have begun to seek out such brief respites, as I did, in order to find some meaningful solace to our pain.  But you don't order fillet minion at a drive-thru window and you can't measure solace in seconds.

I see an increasing amount of viral band-aids for a culture that is ringing out its populations attention span with gigabytes of over-shares and connectivity.  We are so wired into each other that the cords obscure our actual faces.  And its a good thing too, cause that way we don't have to confront the lonely tears streaming down our faces.

Now watch this:


Feel better?