Distraction and continuity
So what do we do now?
Well, there’s no way around it — the last several days have been very tough, quite disappointing, and downright dispiriting for those who deeply believe in a pluralistic, progressive American society with a healthy government/political system solving real systemic problems with clarity and reason, advocating for the expansion of rights for all, with dignity and integrity as cornerstone principles. 😣 Sigh. But that is not the path chosen by a decisive majority who voted for something else — signaling a major difference, even a schism, of values, beliefs, and priorities. I have some strong personal opinions (and emotions) about all that, but that’s not super useful here. 😇
So how do we move forward?
Personally, I’ve re-started approaches from November 2016, as a kind of digital detox, such as removing social media apps, political podcasts (but still keeping Freakonomics, my fave!), news apps from my phone, canceling subscriptions, and avoiding watching cable news. I don’t feel the need to engage the opinions of paid pundits or paid columnists seeking clickbait signals, along with advertiser revenue benefits. I just don’t find that good or productive, especially for my mental health. Doomscrolling ain’t useful either — and remember, the time spent doing that is literally lost forever. You don’t get that time back, it’s gone! 😬 Tick tock, indeed. ⌛️
Also, that is yet another form of giving power to others (media elite, tech bros, political systems, divisive electorate, etc.) over you. Losing your time, your focus, your attention, your energy, and allowing yourself to spiral — nope. 🙅🏽♂️ This is a profound moment to declare your own power with defiant fortitude, re-affirming your identity, your presence, and your moral sense of self. Those who hold antithetical, even antagonistic, values/beliefs/priorities cannot take that away from you…unless you let them. ⚡️✊🏽
So, to help reclaim things for myself, I’ve lately rediscovered real, physical books as a sanctuary, a temporal and psychological space for immersion into a world of ideas that have been vetted, edited, and iterated upon into a statement or discourse to guide/challenge my own thinking. (not just some impulsive hot take, like this post 🙃) Books provide a welcome respite to slow down and allow you to reflect upon and study passages, as images form via the mind’s eye — not the speedily skimmed Slacks, texts, social posts, or even (ahem) Jira tickets. There is a kind of soulful nourishment that ensues from well-written prose. ❤️🩹
A few particular books I’ve delved into include Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and Dune by Frank Herbert. Also, nonfiction reads about Oppenheimer, complex systems, and strategy. There are intriguing, connective threads among personal biography, wicked challenges, and applying principles of “seeing the whole board” while struggling to be true to yourself. Life is a mystery in assorted ways, and seeing how others have tackled that from certain facets can be thought-provoking and inspiring — after all, we are not on that journey of life alone. Others have been through it too, and it’s comforting to find common threads. 🧬
I’ve also been distracting myself with the work at work. We recently shuffled a few team assignments, so I’m taking on new pods/domains at the company — thus, tons to absorb in terms of subject matter expertise, product functionality, quarterly objectives, and forming new relationships along the way. 🙌🏽 Whew! Diving into cognitively taxing work can be a salve, compelling you to push yourself to your next level as a professional, while adapting behaviors and learning new information. It can be a bit of a rejuvenation, albeit stressful too! 😅
Finally, various creative pursuits have been therapeutic, indulging in my freeform exploratory artistic vibes — with iPad sketching of human figures, trying different rendering styles as I feel out the contours of emerging forms with light, shadow, texture. There’s something rejuvenating about intuitively responding to marks in the moment, appreciating the happy accidents of stray lines and going where they want me to go. These kind of explorations have a funny way of embodying a life of their own; truly, artists are creators, breathing life into something new, manifesting an emergent vision. 🔮
We don’t know where things will go from here…but maybe in that anxious ambiguity lies the path of how to keep moving forward, despite being suddenly thrown deep into the dark midnight of America’s soul. Through creating, connecting, learning, perhaps something better is still possible. 🙏🏽