Where's the forest amongst all these trees?

Is it good times or bad? Are we in recovery or on the brink of the next world-wide financial crisis? Certainly there are crises of all manner at our fingertips in the news.

Here we are in earnings season again. The market is choppy; up 1%, down 2%, up another 1%, down 1.5%.  Companies reporting record earnings, missing estimates. Which is it...good or bad? Dividend increases, soft guidance. Perhaps a pattern is emerging; Record earnings, soft guidance leads to a "earnings beat" and higher valuation the next quarter. Valuations remain high, and I'm starting to see some pundits talk like there's a "new normal". You know what happened the last time people were talking that way.  The problem is, if there weren't traders, there wouldn't be a market. Can you imagine a day in the stock market where everyone just stayed home, because they didn't like the prices? Still, I'm DRIPing my way to fully invested, allowing my cost basis to ratchet up bit by bit,  Am I foolish? I hate cash sitting there, not working. I also think that a few fractional shares, purchased at higher valuation, will be balanced sooner or later by some shares purchased at depressed valuation, and the share count will keep growing. I like that compounding, even if it's purely the share count. I care about valuation when I have a chunk of cash to invest. I care about valuation at the point I sell shares, which is almost never. I care about valuation if the earnings and dividends are stagnant or dropping, that's for sure. But what about a quarter with soft earnings? What about 2-3 quarters, or even a year? What about McDonalds? What about Coca Cola?
Too much noise...what would happen if I just shut it all off and came back 5 years from now? Leave the DRIPS in place, forget about balancing, just wander off and do something more interesting and find out what's still standing 5 years from now.
I thought there was a bolus of new cash coming into the retirement portfolio. I finally figured out where to look and my last year's contributions are complete. So, I can go back to worrying about what's in there, not what to buy next. Back to watching the ticker, as if I could ever stop. Back to watching those dividends hit the account. Back to sitting on my hands.