So for starters, I am slacking. I am about 1/3 done with Chapter 17 of the Devastation Series, and have just been mentally exhausted. The kind of exhausted where you scroll for hours on some random site (which happened to be the Wish app for me). I didn’t purchase anything – just admired from the window and gasped at some of the suggested purchases. Brain energy expended… nil. I have a busy weekend with moving coming up and the list that I need to finish. In the meantime, I had a thought come to me about a subject which is painfully dear to me. It has to do with the mess of a world right now. Like an entire stew being baked, and the bottom burnt. The whole stew just seems to have that… that flavor now.

Yesterday, I posed this comment:

Between this wall post and the story headline, I received quite a bit of feedback. Several people would have jumped me if I was on the street (so it would seem). I am finding a weird paradox of thought around all of this. And during the post and before I replied – I learned something about life. It is a lesson that I should have known but it was my own little taste of what is really happening in the world.

I am not going to go into my political views (but they will likely leak onto the page). I could care less if you are Democrat, Republican, or some hodge podge combination of that with even a new-age twist. But, you cannot look at the Media (which is the main/only source of information) and think “Wow, it’s great. Everything is great!” If you can honestly do that… PM me… I would love to have a sample of whatever you are buying or taking. If you are not a fan of the government at this moment, you will be quick to point out the dismantling that is going on. The mis-information. The constant change of decisions. If you are a fan, you will say we are making major changes and that is creating chaos – but I think you would admit it is bumpy… Oh and during this – we are exposing a lot of racism #BLM, and other forms of harassment (such as #MeToo) or gender fluidity. Sprinkle in a made-up pandemic which, for being a lie, sure is creating a lot of illness and death. And while EACH of these are serious topics that deserve attention, we have the news marketing pushing for the sale of their story which means click bait – phrase picking – boundary pushing pieces to get attention. Which they do… So then, the public picks a side. When you read an article – you develop some bias. A feeling inside… And we end up with this huge Venn Diagram of bandwagonneers. What do we do – we react! As the media and news spreads and changes every few minutes we are playing whack-a-mole except instead of putting it away – we seem to be stoking each of the little fires. If you step back from afar – the mosaic comes into view and the whole damn world seems to be on fire.

So after I posted the above. I thought about the reactions to my little blurb. I should have an opinion – but not that one. And obviously, I was discrediting every American, every sacrifice and was using my little pedestal (not a platform LOL), to explain how I was anti-American. Right… I carefully selected the words. I did not want to denounce America – but did want to say that even I was at my breaking point. So I thought about it for awhile and actually got angry about some of the reactions. It was an interesting place to be. They have the same right that I do/did to comment, which I invited, but it was a quick dog-pile, and people actually were fueled by others comments. So I replied, after thinking about this in Context of the world – and all of those micro/macro actions… stories… events…

There was such an influx of comments and pings and feedback when everyone thought I was bashing America (which to be fair is a sitting target right now). Only a couple people asked to understand. The question. The missing piece. The question, which paints the context for what you cannot get across in a blurb. The comment afterwards was from someone who I admire and is quoted as, “What is really happening is people are being willingly manipulated…” Several people liked it. So — do we know it? Are we so beat-up that we feel like we have to beat down everything and apologize later? But how much damage can we issue to later retract? In a moment we went from an opinionated post – to personal judgement from an imaginary context or a context construed from an egocentric view

I am afraid I will not be able to wrap this to a tight close. There are lots of loose ends and questions answered with questions. I wonder what would happen if we just quarantined ourselves FROM THE MEDIA for 14 days. Shut off Facebook for 14 days. If we need to use something to talk to our loved ones – set up a group chat. Maybe that is the action from this? I challenge each of us to #FacebookQuarantine for 14 days. #MediaQuarantine for 14 days. Maybe it is broader than that and should be #UnplugQuarantine. Do whatever that means to you – but clear your head. Catch your breath and let us stop pouncing on things like a feral cat in the corner.