Existential Battle Rest Stop
Building breaks into this war of attrition makes you a better fighter.
We were really carpet bombed with world-changing news at the beginning of this year. You’d set your phone down for a minute to make some dinner only to pick it up a short while later and find some fresh hell sending the Discourse into a tizzy. But now, during one of the inevitable weeks where the news cycle isn’t quite as all-consuming, cross-platform, and dire, things somehow feel… just as bad? It becomes hard to believe that the relative tranquility is anything more than the eye of the hurricane.
Put me out of my misery and drop the other shoe already!
This anxiety and hypervigilance is a textbook trauma response from the years of relentless horrors Clockwork Orange-d into our brain folds. Our addled minds are no longer able to handle a lull in the chaos. In fact, we’ve been marinating in that chaos for so long that it’s now kinda starting to feel like something of a grounding force. Truly perverse stuff.
Almost in a panic at the sight of a “slow” news week, we dive back onto the doomscroll treadmill. Once more into the breach—little media jarheads on patrol, desperate for action, hoping to ascertain the whereabouts of that missing other shoe. Because if we get eyes on that bad news bogey, we might actually find some sort of peace in reaffirming that shit is indeed still as FUBAR as when we last checked. And by becoming the counter-panopticon that’s informed about everything, we’re helping! Right?