Yinz may have noticed over the past few days that the posts on this weblog have been a bit more abstract than usual. At first it didn't start out as intentional--I was in Chicago to attend Worldcon, not to trawl through newspaper articles until I found something that pissed me off enough to fulminate about it, and even though it's over now I find it somewhat relaxing to not take the hobby back up quite yet.
Not because I have any particular interest in ignorance, mind you. At this point I see it more as a mental health issue. I've been in a pretty bad way in some respects over the last little while, time and again sinking into dark pits. It's easy to feel demoralized and powerless in a world like this, in a world where those we trust to lead us seem interested only in maximizing their own power and don't give a toss about what or who they have to push aside in order to get there. It's hard, sometimes, going through the day with a constant churning in the pit of my stomach, seeing all this bad news and coming away with the conviction that things won't get better.
It took a couple of days free of news before what was going on really started to sink in. The attitudes of the convention may have helped with that, of course, but regardless I started feeling more level--stopped dwelling on things I couldn't change, started feeling more at ease with the world. It's not the kind of feeling that will last forever, of course; it takes a lot of active work to not dwell on certain things, and I don't want to wallow in ignorance.
Still, it's a nice vacation of the mind. For anyone who's getting wound up by the news, I suggest that for a few days you stop looking at the papers and pretend that everything's going to be okay.
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