Notices by andrea patrice (annedraya@zirk.us)

The Hamas attack on Israel was horrific. The responding Israeli attack and siege on Gaza is horrific. War is just horrific. I have nothing but compassion for everyone caught up in this chaos.

Processing the news of Trump’s January 6 indictment while simultaneously being aware of what I’m feeling is…strange. I think my deepest emotion about it is just overwhelming sadness about the state of our world, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Am on social media a lot less these days but have been dismayed in all the hate and glee in the suffering of other human beings I see when I come back to it. It’s like an awful cycle of hatred going round and round.

I mean, I do understand. The natural impulse when you are hurt is to hurt back if you can, even if only in words. But that all too easily leads to dehumanisation and I think when everyone else is doing it, you can become blind that that is what is happening.

Hating the people who hurt you is like poisoning yourself. I know, because I have been there as a survivor of abuse, not to mention as a Black person who grew up in the USA. It doesn’t stop the original pain, and makes you unable to see the situation clearly and thus make the best choices that might help both yourself and others. But it’s *so* hard to realise that when you’re in the thick of it. It took many years for me to realise this.

I’m finding that #Mastodon is helping me develop a more healthy approach to social media. The timeline doesn’t scroll forever (there’s a bottom!), & the feeds and filters mean there’s a few definite places I check for new interesting posts & then I’m done. Lots of discussion, often about hard & important topics, but no perpetual outrage that screams at me through the screen, & much less ‘both sides’ journalism that seeks to normalise the absurd & the untrue.

I log on, I share, I log off. Nice.