My zone is flooded, how's your zone?

Everyone copes with stress in their own way. For example, one of my family members is writing Substack newsletters identifying and excoriating the lunatics, while another has unplugged from all media. One of my friends is sending out mass hair-on-fire emails urging us to rise up and do something. Another friend is choosing one action they can take to "make things better." 

I've subscribed to multiple Substacks and YouTube channels, adding my puny clicks to help balance the media landscape. I doubt if we liberals will ever catch up to the Foxies but we can try, one scream at a time. I originally subscribed because my hair was on fire. After a while, my hair fell out, and now I congratulate myself on helping the brave liberal media pundits grow their subscriber lists. 

I have given up trying to read or watch everything. The clickbait headlines aren't fooling me anymore. I know it's how media gets our attention these days—even NPR is doing it. Sometimes I sigh, roll my eyes, and take the bait. I'm usually disappointed. Mostly, I just ignore it all. I guess that means I've unplugged my eyeballs but not unplugged from the technology. Hm.

Lately, I'm just selecting everything in my inbox and pressing delete. I can't keep up. I'm not going to fret if I miss something. Head-exploding emails are a lot like waves in the ocean. It won't be long before another one detonates in my inbox. I've taken to watching the highlights. Why listen to anything in real time when other people have done all the emotional labor of chewing, swallowing, and upchucking the news of the day? I don't have the energy to paddle through the muck. 

People say it's not good to isolate, especially in times of stress. I'm not so sure, if the people around you are losing their sh*t when some new catastrophe floods their inboxes. I personally think it might be healthy to avoid people whose hair is smoking. You can usually spot them. They are the ones sending you mass emails exhorting you to do something.

I'm taking the Zen approach, striving for unattachment to particular outcomes. I admit, it hasn't been easy. At first, I was running around like Chicken Little proclaiming the sky is falling. Then I found out the sky might really be falling, not tomorrow, but possibly in my lifetime, and then I realized, I can do nothing to deflect an asteroid. Similarly, I can't by myself move the baby planet nucleus that currently occupies the center of reality into a dementia care facility where it belongs. 

Together, we can do a lot, though. Humans are jerks but we are definitely resourceful. If we can nudge an asteroid into a new orbit, we can certainly nudge an assh*le out of the Oval Office. This is not hard to grasp. The part that requires master Zen skills is the realization that there is a raft of crazies floating in the hazmat zone around that termite-ridden desk. These nutjobs cannot easily be nudged off their paths, on account of they are mean haters who are terrified of losing something they think they have or not getting something they are sure they want. 

This means it is critical to vote early and often. Assuming we still live in a democracy. 

I take heart in remembering that conspiracies fall apart eventually, because humans are pathetic self-centered terrified idiots who are genetically programmed to look out only for themselves. Sooner or later, their quest for power (aka safety) will cause them to eat each other the way caged gerbils eat their young. The way ancient civilizations cut and burned the forests that sustained them. The way ice skaters take crowbars to the kneecaps of competitors. The way the citizens of the winning team tear down their city's signal lights and bash in store windows. I could go on.  

I could whine and say, it's not me, it's those guys over there, the haters, the ones who wish I would die, or at least, cease to exist, so they could get on with whatever they plan to do when their world is finally white enough. When all the grass is in a museum, when anything colorful is behind bars in a zoo or other secure facility. When they have all the money. Although, what they think they are going to spend it on when there's no one left to make the crap they want to buy is probably not on their radar. 

No, it's not me, it's not my fault, but I'm part of the human collective, therefore, I am part of the problem. I drive a fossil-fuel burning car, I buy stuff from big box stores, I want the easy path to the cash and prizes the American dream promised me when I was in art school. 

Therefore, it is me. And you. It's all of us. The outcome we get we deserve.