Regularly Scheduled?

I used to think it was ridiculous that regular people had to put out statements in response to current events, as we were politicians or brands. Normal individuals acknowledging “thing has happened” on their instagram does nothing but prove they are not ignorant of the news cycle, although I did start to wonder if that wasn’t important to do—do we really want to associate people who don’t know anything about the world? Or, worse, a person who does understand whatever bad thing is happening, and is on the wrong side of it. Every time there is a major upsetting act of hate in the world, there are many things on social media that seem to boil down to, “FYI I am not a hateful person, I stand for good things and I will be remembered on the correct side of history.” This seems inane and these posts are neither interesting nor informative, but more and more, I am surprised but those who DO turn out to be hateful, so maybe the posts are not truly useless.

I still don’t do it, and you can decide for yourself which times I am just refusing to be inane and which times I am in fact ignorant of the news cycle. It could almost always be either. Certainly there are many people who are wise, comforting, galvanizing, unsettling, and inspiring on social media during times of crisis, and I get a lot of information from my socials these days—probably more than I should, but there’s plenty of good and important news there, being reported in non-traditional ways. But if it were actually a conversation, say, around a dinner table, those of us who knew less—or nothing—would main nod and “hmm” and take mental notes, wouldn’t we? We wouldn’t leap into the middle of the fray and assert a basic understanding of the situation…would we? But I suppose at the dinner table people would know us, and we wouldn’t have to keep confirming that we are good people, the way people who speak to a lot of strangers on socials feel compelled to do.

My point of view has changed radically in the past few years, both about activism and about social media. In 2019, I was a very active environmental activist, primarily not on social but since I wrote about everything on Facebook, I wrote about that there too. I didn’t see any downside, and indeed there really wasn’t one, though I also don’t know if I helped anyone or anything. Social media has changed since 2019 and so has activism, and so have I. I see very little point in wading into the fray on an important issue if I have little to offer other than my feeling—I know if someone takes issue with those feelings, it’ll be all I can think about, and I’ll lose sight of the actual issue completely. Better to focus on what smarter people are saying. And that, I suppose, is cowardice. But better to know oneself, I guess.

There’s how I do it, just going on blithely not talking about the horrors while actively consuming the media about the horrors, which allows me to decide how upset I want to be at any given point. And then there’s the kind of penance I see others give occasionally, stating at the top of a post about cats, that it’s hard to talk about anything else given the horrors but weird as it may seem, here is a post about some cats. It is shocking that the world is so various but I do find those little caveats a bit…I don’t know what. Obviously, I don’t do them. I don’t know.

Or you could make everything over to the worst wrenching realities of the present. Some people have no choice but to confront the worst, so in solidarity, we could all think about how society is letting them down. We could think about it more. I could think about it more. I do think about the worst things, but I don’t write about them very much. Writing just seems more…fixed.

Cowardice. Human nature. My personal nature. Anyway. These are things I worry about it.

Also: I had a conversation with Mark today if, in parallel universe he is an amoeba and I’m a person, we can still be married, and he said yes, even if he doesn’t have fingers to wear a wedding ring.

I ordered a box of Cows cheese from PEI for Valentine’s Day. You can too—they are having a Valentine’s Day sale and it’s very good cheese.

Do you think about the balance between the worst of reality and when your Valen-cheese will come in the mail, and the struggle to focus on what is most important, and how much you say in public? And whether anyone cares if you say anything in public? Or what? Or just me?