The Wheel Of Fortune represents the passing of time, the cycles of life, the ups and downs we go through. Reversed it can signify a cycle out of whack. On speed. Crazed. This is a card for our times if ever there was one. We’re all caught in the 24/7 media spin cycle. Beit conveyed the old fashioned way via television and print or spewed out of the internet on blogs, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whatev.

So much information, so little real news.

Too many molehills. Too few actual mountains.

Peeps jumped on the actress Emma Thompson this week when she suggested women can benefit from taking a year off work to spend time with their children. Oh, the uproar this caused. Oh, the outrage that she should dare suggest such a thing when most mothers can’t afford such a luxury. Seriously, what the? She was talking in the context of her own personal situation as an actress who is away from home for long periods. It was an off-the-cuff remark. But from the reaction you’d have thought she was making it law.

Here in my hometown others are jumping up and down at the moment because a teenage girl in a special education program had her armpits shaved at school. As did the rest of the girls in her class. Practical skills like shaving are a normal part of special education programs and parents were informed in advance. Yet you’d think the child had been physically assaulted from the response her parent’s complaint about this has generated.

Meanwhile profound events become just another item squeezed in between grumpy cats and celebrity tidbits. Climate change. Innocents slaughtered with guns yet again in America. Hundreds of girls kidnapped from a school in Nigeria. Probably raped. A woman bludgeoned to death in Pakistan by her own family for not marrying the man of their choice.

The non-stop avalanche of news mutes our ability to respond appropriately. We struggle to catch our breath. Feel overwhelmed by information. Have already moved onto the next thing.

The lesson of the Wheel Of Fortune card is that a well-lived life is yin and yang. It needs to have slow periods as well as busy ones. Quiet contemplation as well as determined action. And embracing this reality is part of our journey to wisdom. In a non-stop news cycle there is no opportunity for stepping back and seeing the bigger picture, for putting things in perspective. And we are all the losers as a result.

Do you ever find yourself sucked into the internet?