I was just looking back on a post from 2021 rehashing the year and mildly welcoming the new one. It was about a year after the pandemic and a lot of what I wrote about is still so poignant. The disappointment with the status quo, the despair in how little governments actually care about their people. The heaviness of death that year. So much of life is cyclical from different perspectives, feelings repeating, situations evolving, but change is that one constant. I find comfort in that. That change is iinevitable no matter what you’re going through. Your feelings today can change drastically tomorrow or even within the hour. I wish progress could be as consistent, as dependable. I’ve had to come to terms with how slow progress is and how incredibly difficult it can be to stay hopeful when there is so much going on in the world to feel utterly hopeless about. I’ve been feeling a lot of feelings recently. It’s been especially hard to grapple with continuing to go on and live life knowing there is so much violence happening elsewhere. This country’s news outlets do an excellent job of elevating particular conflicts for specific reasons (mostly ratings which equal money- it’s always about money), and completely ignoring their varied aspects. I’m still not sure why it’s so hard to call what’s happening in Gaza genocide.

I know we’re told to go find our news elsewhere and be discerning with what we read and see, but what if we hold these publications and broadcasters accountable for what they choose to cover. What if we rejected these hit pieces on celebrities and distractions from actually impactful events and demanded a more well-rounded output of information? Okay, I do still need my celebrity news, but I don’t need so much. If I hear one more thing about Will and Jada’s marriage Swift and that football man I truly may lose it completely. I digress…
I’ve seen so many opinions blaming the American people for not making an effort to learn about worldly events. I agree to an extent, but what if we moved away to continuously judging individuals for not having time or energy to go beyond local news or newspapers and start examining the local news and newspapers, the major networks and publications. Who runs the networks? Who is allowed to tell stories? What are the benefits of not being transparent with the people? Why has the news cycle changed over the last few decades? I am not absolving Americans of being willingly misinformed about the broader world, but I do think it’s easier to place blame on individuals instead of hold institutions accountable.

It’s something that’s been so clear these last few months. I was speaking with my mom a few weeks ago about the war (genocide) and she had no idea that there were protests happening globally supporting Palestine and millions urging a ceasefire. My mom gets her news from a specific news source and it’s clearly biased. And no it’s not Fox News, it’s AOL News. It’s a site she visits where she expects to get a broad sense of what’s happening in the country and beyond. While she does get an overall temperature check, there are samplings of stories chosen to be featured that don’t paint the full picture. Israel-Gaza conflict stories are buried in tiny typeface. Trump’s orange face dominates the front page. No mention at all of Congo or Sudan, those headlines long gone from most new sources until more recently. This all reminds me of 1984, an Orwellian view of the country, curated and calculated trickles of information to not stir any trouble or be too helpful. That’s what a majority of the major networks purport. It’s what makes the closure of these alternative or less massive publications so much more unfortunate.

Anyway, I really meant to talk more about how it’s been so tough to focus right now. It’s hard to go through the motions. It’s hard to see the point of working. It’s hard to continue pretending there aren’t tragic and unthinkable atrocities happening as I send emails and sit in meetings. It’s hard to reconcile working for a company that has no intention of showing public support for Palestinians. It’s hard to be present and engaged when we are living through multiple genocides.

I am struggling right now and I know I’m not the only one. I’m counting down the the seconds until the winter holiday and I cannot wait to lay down in the darkness and do nothing for like an entire day.

The light at the end of the tunnel is my family coming up here for Xmas. I’m hosting my first Xmas all by myself and I’m mostly excited, slightly terrified I’ll ruin everything, but yes, mostly excited! Trying to occupy my mind with that, so thinking of how to decorate my apartment and where to get a tree have been welcomed distractions. I need to go watch some cartoons or something. I started listening to Coldplay again today, so I’ll leave you with one of my favs. Oh wow, just discovered there’s a music video! Omg it’s so cheesy haha, but I love the song.