"I am afraid there is no silver lining," intones the CNN broadcaster, reporting on the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse over the weekend.

He hands over to the anchor who puts on a stern face and says, "Yes, no good news there." Then lights up with a smile, "And now let's turn to the weather."

There was really nothing to smile about either on that front. Hurricane Ike was still making itself felt in Texas and Typhoon Sanlu was wreaking havoc in Taiwan.

At the hairdresser the first question I was asked, "Do you have AIA policy? It's bankrupt." (Yes, I do, and no it hasn't – not yet anyway, as I write this.)

That night I called my sister to find out what was happening in Malaysia – it was September 16, the day opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said he would have enough MPs to form a new government.

It turned out I had to tell her what was going on because my sister prefers to live her life without Internet access at home. I think that's why she is always smiling, my big sis – not like that CNN anchor who can turn it and off like a switch.

I read her the headlines from the Malaysiakiniwebsite. These days we get the news we trust from bloggers, as well as the independent newspaper,The Sun, which by the way has been asked to show cause to the government or else face closure.

What a week it's been. But strangely, it just seems to be more of the same.

I think we have become so immune to bad news that they flow off us like water off a duck's back. Perhaps it's the environment that makes us so blasé about everything.

Think about it. Lehman Brothers. 158 years of history. Survived the Civil War, Great Depression, two world wars, couldn't survive this.

What's this?

A super-connected world where one storm there leads to no, not ripples, but storms everywhere, where one earthquake leads to tsunamis everywhere and where rumours wrapped up in SMSes, instant messages and emails spread like wildfire.

An instant world in which financial behemoths are brought down to their knees in a few clicks, children kill and maim enemies with a few clicks, we take in information in less than a blink and move on to the next thing – a world in which we have no time for anything yet want time to do everything.

No wonder everything appears to be more of the same. When things move as fast as they do, we only see them in a blur. We don't have time to look, let alone think, beyond the surface.

It's what our reading has been reduced to. We scan headlines.

It's what our conversations have been reduced to.

"What's it (the book) about? Just give me the gist."

"What's it (the movie) about? Just tell me how it ends."

The book I am reading now, "March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up", is about just that.

This movie – I wish I could tell you how it ends.