[Seth Says] I'm OK - You're ????

Happy Holidays, Friends.

By which I mean that it is the holiday season, and I hope this timespan contains some happiness for you. 

(One might well ask why I am proactively trying to forestall a response similar to Gandalf's towards the opening of the The Hobbit when he asks, "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"... and the answer to that is because earlier this week I found myself on the Internet having to explain that when I had said, "I hate when this game forces you to do this thing", I was using "forces" to mean "requires this thing in order to fully participate and receive rewards", rather than "the game devs have broken into my home, are holding me at gunpoint, and threatening to kill me if I do not do this thing." I am also led to believe that this type of pre-emptive over-clarification is also common among people who have spent too much time on Twitter, a category into which I also fall.)(Although arguably, any time on Twitter is too much time on Twitter.)
 

It is by no means a given that people's holidays will be happy. (even if there is cheese)(although cheese *helps*, naturally). I had a conversation with a friend earlier today who said they were doing well, and I was so genuinely delighted to hear it, perhaps in part because doing well has not really been the norm per se in my social circles (or realistically more like social dots; I'm an introvert) of late. It has not been an easy year for many of my family and friends, as a number of you have endured various big-C Catastrophes such as Covid, Cancer, Car accident, et Cetera. Basically, people have been through the shredder.

I am doing OK. I have been very fortunate, and my life is now basically the culmination of my impossible dreams of earlier decades. 10-year-old me longingly dreamed of having a library of many hundreds of games, 20-year-old me dreamed of one day having a long-term romantic partner, 30-year-old me dreamed of being able to pay my bills from freelance writing, and now I have all the games and live with a partner I love and make my living as a freelance writer. I have been exceedingly fortunate.

I say this not to brag, but rather to note that in spite of incredible good luck and living out the dreams of multiple decades of past selves, I am merely doing OK. Not bad, but not amazingly great like 5 years ago, just OK. (Which leaves me occasionally surly, with a fringe on top.)(not actually surly so much as occasionally disgruntled, but I kept writing OK and then Oklahoma ended up in my head. "And the raging tweets, may spell defeat...")  And that's with very good luck and the universe mostly tipping in my favor. So I can only imagine that for everyone who *hasn't* been super-lucky with the hand they've been dealt by the fickle farts of fate, things have been hard.
 

But in many cases I don't even need to Imagine, because some of my friends have actually been talking about how difficult they have been finding things of late. And my heart goes out to them (you), because trying to deal with the mental and emotional horrors of the world around us, along with all the struggles and burdens of your own life (illness, family issues, work, lack of work, relationships, lack of relationships, etc.), can be overwhelming. And I see so many people going through it and struggling but you push yourself to keep going, and to you I bid strength, and more moments of joy, and a betterment of circumstances.

And I also have seen some people then taking on the extra guilt (common with depression)(or for that matter, Judaism or Catholicism) of not only feeling bad, but then feeling bad about feeling bad, because how can you justify feeling bad when there are people under siege and dying in the Ukraine and the Middle East &c? Well, as Tim Minchin reminds me, you're still allowed to feel dissatisfied with your life even if some people have it worse.

So if you have found this year to be a difficult one, please know that you are not alone, you are allowed to feel overwhelmed by things, and I very much hope that you will find better times ahead.

(Also would it be better to have headlined this section "Suck It, John Lemon"? I imagine people would sour on the idea.) (What if the Beatles were all foods? George Harissa, Mango Star, Palm mcHeartney... this idea was not the Best.)(The Eatles!)(I was going to make a Yellow Submarine Sandwich joke and then remembered that The Rutles exist.)

 

(which could be pronounced "ock-ock", to rhyme with Doc Oc)(A helpful mnemonic for the Spider-Fans, not so helpful for anyone else)(Also, I originally wrote "pneumonic", although I guess lungs are generally helpful too.)

Anyway, as mentioned, I am doing OK. (Annie are you OK?)(Annie are you Oakley?) And while I'd like to attribute my general contentment to things like personal growth and stoic philosophy and so forth, realistically a large part of it is the fact that I was lucky enough to find someone who I really enjoy being with who enjoys being with me, which is the subject of this week's column:
 

So for all the other problems in the world and unpleasant events in my life, being with Debbie keeps things pretty OK.

 

I have perhaps included slightly more links to random music videos in this week's edition than usual, because science experts (or people who claim to be experts online) believe that pouring enough media into your ears and eyeballs can help drown the sadness. Not that I'm saying there's a pervasive sadness epidemic -- what kind of message would that be for a humor newsletter? -- not to mention that people already think I'm overreacting to a very well-documented covid epidemic, the last thing I should be doing is repeating the word epidemic to the point where people associate me with crying epidemic (there's a wolf epidemic!), but I can't stop saying epidemic in this paragraph. I guess it's endemic.

Still, in spite of all the warnings that it will rot your brain, I find the warm glow of screen entertainment quite comforting in stressful situations (such as existing in the current world), and so here we are. I guess one could even argue for reading from a screen as screen entertainment, but it's not the same thing. Video and movies just hold your attention more immersively with multiple senses at once, which is why when it comes to the warm embrace of the glowy box, I'm just a girl who cain't say no.

OK (lahoma), that's probably enough musical references for one newsletter, so thanks for reading, and back in a couple weeks with another column, but meanwhile I should really STOP!

Hammerstein!



U Can't Touch This (due to social distancing),
Seth