Conclusions

So I had a nice long, depressing, navel-gazey post about current events and so on most of the way typed up last week, and decided to scrap it.  Just writing it had exorcised some demons, and you people don't need to share in the depressingness, amirite?  You're welcome.

Suffice it to say that last week was kind of rough on a number of levels -- national news items, local flooding and weather, I had a bad day at work, I read a couple of really depressing articles, I was in the middle of a very depressing book -- and I've decided to make a couple changes.

a) I will be trying to take a hiatus from news (or "news") articles that exist solely to inform its readership that the world is in fact an even more horrible place than we previously realized.  If someone links to an article that looks interesting, before clicking on it, I will stop and ask myself: Will reading this article actually change my life or point of view in some way for the better?  If not, how crucially important is it that I know about this in order to be a responsible, informed citizen?  If it is informing me about a problem, how critical is it that I know about it, how critical is it that I know about it right now, is it a proven problem or just latest unproven theories and findings blown out of proportion, and, most importantly, is there something I will be able to do to fix it?  If the answer's negative, I won't be reading it.

b) I'm backing away from facebook again.  I won't be deactivating it this time (Kathleen finally had her behbeh yesterday and I needs my updates), but I'm going to leave it logged out and try to only stop in a couple times a day.  I'd slowly started getting sucked back in until I was about up to my previous level of emotional involvement, and I need to nip that in the bud.  (This probably won't actually interfere with my interactions with most of the people reading this [all two of you] since I have you in a separate list I can check, and you rarely, if ever, say things that upset me.)

In general -- and this isn't just about last week, it's been coming on for a while -- I've decided that while trying to stay as up to date and informed as possible is all well and good, mental health is more important.  Unfortunately, "news" these days is I think formulated on some level less to keep you informed and more to keep you worked up.  Fox News and MSNBC are the obvious examples, but I think it's more subtle and pervasive than just those two -- I think a far smaller percentage of what comes our way masquerading as "news" actually qualifies than we realize.  I'm pretty sure I'll be well informed enough without clicking on every article that comes my way, or by wallowing in issues I already have set opinions about; the big, important news items gradually make their way through to me without my trying anyway.

Because, frankly, the extent to which my daily mental life has been filled with problems and conflict that I have absolutely no control over has left me in an unhappy and, I think, unhealthy place, and I need to start taking better care of myself.  I'm not going to start ignoring the news altogether, obviously, just try to keep it at a reasonable level.  I don't know how successful I'll be in enforcing these changes, or how successful I even really want to be, but I'm going to try to at least distance myself a little bit.

(That said, I love talking about politics and current issues with you guys -- our conversations are a very different experience than what I'm talking about.  So don't feel you suddenly need to censor yourselves around me or anything.  And this isn't so much a public announcement of Things People Need to Be Aware Of, anyway -- I'm just typing out my thoughts.)

In other news, the dog fence is in at my parents.  It's horrible.  It looks like the entire back of the house is in prison.  I mean, fucking hell.