The State as speed bump

Now here is an interesting conversation over at Sunni's blog, as anarcho-libertarians discuss the questions that "given that we live in a world dominated by states, at what point does interacting with them 'cross the line' and become immoral? How is the line determined?"

My light-bulb-flash moment came as "galacticmonk" mused:

my evolution started with attraction to free markets & liberty. from there i became active, getting angry (reacting emotionally) at the constant barrage of noise that conflicted with my ideal (at the time) libertarian paradise.

soon i started to realize that the perpetual stream of things that go against my current understanding would eat away at my core. i had to re-evaluate what was important. and frankly the state ranked so far down the list that it became a non-factor.

as soon as living a meaningful life and finding joy in the day-to-day aspect of it became my reason for being here, the state was like a speed bump--annoying but something i really had no control over (unless i chose a different road of course).

So here's a guy, me, whose entire career has been in media/news, with news defined as observing and explaining the latest stuff that The State is doing. I'm all wrapped up in watching The State, and I hear that "living a meaningful life and finding joy in the day-to-day aspect of it" is probably best accomplished by not getting all wrapped up in watching The State. I know this instinctively, but haven't seen it verbalized quite this neatly for a while.

Should I seek a journalistic beat that doesn't involve itself so much in State News, or seek a completely different path that takes me out of my media/news comfort zone but into something a little more joyful because it does not expose me to The State every day? This is the question that's been driving me nuts for some time, in part because I haven't phrased the question so well before.

As for the answer ... Stay tuned. And remind me that I was talking to myself when I said "Stay tuned."