How to survive the news cycle
This week. Man. THIS WEEK. After years of dragging ourselves through months and years as slow-moving as molasses and as toxic as, I don’t know, rancid molasses, the political news out of the U.S. feels like it’s on fastforward. I won’t even attempt to write a summary, but thank you to James Poniewozik for capturing the national mood.
Personally, I’m taking a moment to mourn the YEARS of my life I spent trying to understand the Russia investigation, overtaken and rendered all but obsolete in a matter of hours. At this rate the whistleblower will have been named, fired, given a record-setting book deal, and been milkshake ducked by the time you read this. The HBO movie will be out by Thanksgiving.
When things are moving this fast, it can feel like you need to be tuned in for every minute of it. You don’t. It’s ok to step back. I have long had a rule about Trump and U.S. political news, even before the election: I don’t let him, or it, decide my schedule. I don’t skip yoga to refresh Twitter. I catch up on primary debates after the fact. I wait for the summaries of big events to be sent to my inbox by one of the many newspapers I support with digital subscriptions. The things I will change my schedule for are the general election debates and actual election day. That’s it. (If I lived in the U.S., certain major protests would probably make that list too.)
This doesn’t always work, of course. I’m not a robot, and sometimes the news is too depressing or infuriating to effectively (or ethically) compartmentalize it so aggressively. The Kavanaugh hearings were like that. Some of the immigration news has been like that. It’s not good to look away from suffering, whether it’s yours or other people’s. It’s also not healthy or helpful to immerse yourself in it all the time. So are my boundaries saving my soul, or are they rotting it away? I’m honestly not sure. I don’t think anyone is. But as things speed up, I’m slowing down. It’s the only way I can imagine making it to the other side as a whole human being.
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Greta Thunberg’s UN speech. It feels great to hear someone be really angry about climate change. Not sad, not resigned, not scared, but mad as hell at what’s been done to our planet and our future by people intent on preserving an unjust and dangerous economic system until civilization literally collapses around them just because they’re personally getting rich off it. Related: “The Case for Climate Rage.”