You Can(not) Change the World
Humans did not evolve in a world of eight billion people. We didn’t evolve with the internet, or television, or phones, or ChatGPT, or airplanes, or a 24-hour news cycle, or even light bulbs. We evolved in a cold world where we’d only ever meet a few hundred people and only ever travelled within a few hundred miles.
So when at the end of the day, after dealing with work that likely spans continents, spending “breaks” looking at today’s news from across the planet, and you turn on a screen to watch a lifelike depiction of someone undergoing surgery or something, and you find yourself feeling overwhelmed & exhausted… don’t seem so surprised, maybe.
It’s honestly a miracle that we cope this well with this much stuff going on that’s so antithetical to how we evolved. Forget spears and fires, we have forged sand to think for us and light up our eyes with a bunch of symbols representing abstract ideas. Of course we’re going to feel overwhelmed some amount of the time. Think about how many decisions you have to make in the span of a day. It’s insane!
All this is to say… maybe let yourself tune out from the neverending flood of bad news occasionally, as a treat. Maybe it’s not so good to stay so informed. I’m not saying bury your head in the sand and pretend everything is hunky-dory and that the country isn’t descending into fascism. I’m saying maybe give yourself some actual breaks. Maybe scroll through the headlines for like 5 minutes a day, with an eye for something that you can do about it, and then put it aside.
There’s not much many of us can do about Elon Musk flagrantly disregarding laws and tearing apart government institutions, or Donald Trump declaring that trans people don’t exist (unless you’re a lawyer or politician or something). I am a computer programmer/manager leading a team working on software for frontline manufacturing workers; I’m pretty sure my work is not going to have a direct effect on what’s happening in DC.
What we can do is focus more on our worlds. How can we put a little bit more love out there? What are all the ways that we can say “no” to cynicism & nihilism and say “yes” to the smaller communities around us? How can we adjust the way we talk to folks, the way our words come out, to bring a little bit more light into the world?
This is what I’ve been aspiring to do lately, and I think it’s been going relatively well. I sure as hell don’t always succeed, but it’s been somewhat of a north star amidst all the shitty events I’ve been trying to keep in my periphery without turning away entirely. It’s what’s kept me relatively sane. I’d recommend giving it a try.