I feel like I'm seeing less and less #alttext on images that cross my timeline, and it's not good, y'all. Please don't exclude our visually impaired friends. Thanks!
When the 12yo is having a rough morning & cannot make herself get out of the car when we pull up to #school, we try our very best to talk it out, and when that doesn't work, we drive away from school & go to a new-to-us used #bookstore & have #coffee & peruse #books for an hour before driving back to school & trying again, this time successfully.
She was 2 1/2 hours late to school. I'm teaching her that caring for her emotional health is more important than conformity.
1. If the craven cowards have a leader, she is it.
2. She doesn't understand what "political" means. She has made a career of it, but she doesn't know what it means. EVERYTHING HUMANS DO IS POLITICAL, because everything each of us does affects the choices we all make together as we live together in the "polis." So hell yeah the choice to impeach Trump has ALWAYS been political. And so is the choice not to.
@alice A UPS worker recently asked me, "Would you like to round up to feed the homeless? Before you answer that"--he lowered his voice--"you should know that before your donation gets to the point of buying food for anybody, first UPS takes their cut, then [organization] takes their cut, then [something I don't remember] takes their cut, so in the end these donations are practically worthless. Don't ever round up. Just give someone on the street a dollar. It'll do way more good."
@cy Most of them probably, yes. But if you're on the receiving end, it doesn't really matter if they're bits or people -- the emotional impact is the same.
It's like how people are getting into "relationships" with AI and considering an AI chatbot to be a romantic partner. The "partner" is automated, but the emotional response in the person on the other end is very real.
"At this rate, Skeletor could be cackling over the nuclear codes with his best pal Lex Luthor and we’d be instantly blasted with podcasts about how the armies of darkness have legitimate concerns."
...If something happens that I can actually do something about, I'll hear about it through the people closest to me. But for my own mental and emotional health, I have to stop doomscrolling.
But Courtney, you ask, can't you avoid doomscrolling but still keep aware of daily headlines?
No, not really. I've tried that, and it doesn't work. Blame addictive tendencies, blame a sick form of escapism, blame whatever. It results in an all-or-nothing I can't seem to break out of.
Well, I've been mostly not paying attention to "news" for the past two weeks -- one because I was busy with book-publishing, two because I felt so much better emotionally as a result of not doomscrolling.
Over the past 2 days, I've checked back in with the collapse of civilization and see that it is continuing at a breakneck pace, just as expected.
I think I'm done for the foreseeable future. I'm done reading about it all, I'm done doomscrolling about it.
I'm taking care of *my* yard. My gate is closed to the autocrats, oligarchs, fascists, and supporters thereof. My gate is open to anyone who needs refuge from any of those.
In the meantime, I'm tending my yard and adhering to the Spider Robinson Principle:
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased--thus do we refute entropy."
I'll still be here. But expect a lot more book stuff, writing stuff, reading stuff, and cats.
author: #fantasy #scifi #specfic #philosophyAmerigerman cultural mutt #ThirdCultureKid#ADHD #DAVEleaning into lackmischieftarrying in a/theism "slash"critical thought #neurosparklyshe/her#Abi '96Cassandracourtcan.comavatar: my face. white woman. 40s. 3/4 profile. brn eyes. dk blond curls pulled back. direct gaze. Mona Lisa smile?header: from my YA fantasy THE ACCURSED cover: ominous forest, teen girl, back to viewer. long frizzy hair, long red dress. hopeful light beyond trees