The model Fabio bleeding after an incident with a goose while he was riding a rollercoaster at Busch Gardens in 1999. (AP Image by Steve Earley from People Magazine).
The news cycle is a rollercoaster right now. If you enjoy rollercoasters, good luck to you. I tend to feel sick and regretful as soon as I get on one.
Remember when you couldn’t pick up a newspaper without reading about Covid-19? Now everybody seems to have accepted they’re doomed to get it at some point, and we’ve all mostly moved on. Vaccines make most people’s infections less serious and yes, a million Americans died. It’s a tragedy. But it’s not what’s leading our national conversations. World War Three was a thing for a bit. Then somebody leaked a draft Supreme Court opinion. Next. This weekend, a white supremacist killed 10 people with an automatic rifle at a supermarket in Buffalo. Now you can’t read a newspaper without reading the words “replacement theory”. For the love of God. And we’re approaching the two-year mark of George Floyd’s death. Yet, last week President Joe Biden told cities across the country to spend the COVID money on police.
I got vertigo last week. It’s part of recovering from COVID. Because of course, I got it, too. But you could forgive me for being dizzy, regardless. And I forgot. The stock market is also doing that terrifying thing it seems to do now every three weeks, again. Meanwhile, when I went out for a sandwich and a drink last week, it cost me $30. I shrugged. I was hungry. The sandwich was meh. I’m never retiring. Also, it seems America is judging women for giving their babies formula now, because there is no formula available? It’s a sort of “she’s a witch, if she floats” news story, that one.
What’s going on, though? Can I get a witness?
I don’t know. I can’t remember when the news cycle was spinning this hard. The stakes seem to rise higher with every news story. One cares a lot about the outcomes. But one cares so much, it becomes overwhelming and exhausting. Then the natural inclination is to duck one’s head and retreat a bit until it all blows over. It’s about self-preservation and I don’t judge anybody for their reactions to all this. Meanwhile, I work with organizations seeking to get their messages out. But it’s a challenging time to do it.
How do you convince yourself a research paper you’ve been putting together for a year is still important, now? How do you convince an editor? Many of us are jettisoning best made plans and pivoting in new directions. We’re doing our best to be the people we were before the news went mad. To adapt to changing circumstances with a nimble, clear-eyed sense of what matters. And who could blame us? We want to have an impact on the course of events. We want to believe in the idea we had of the world before. These are natural impulses.
I don’t have an easy answer to help you, or myself. But I do have a daily practice that can help. It’s to start each day with a fresh sheet of paper and write the headlines on it. Then it might be possible to eek out some small bit of relevance in that context. Or it might not. But you can’t be too hard on yourself if not. I spend a lot of energy thinking of creative ways to interest editors and reporters in ideas. It helps if the ideas are timely and solving some of our most urgent problems. Likewise, I know, I’m not a miracle worker. Increasing numbers of my clients say they’re thrilled if we can get them published, right now. I’m grateful for their realistic expectations and their faith and confidence in me. I trust my judgement. I trust my abilities. Still. It’s a hard time to tell a story.
I think of the poet, T.S.Eliot, just after World War One, walking across Margate Sands. He wrote an epic poem that began with the words, “I can connect nothing with nothing.” And I realize, humanity has been in darker places in our recent history. I also try to hold on to this perspective: We began telling stories to each other around fires and in caves. We did it to improve our feelings of connection and togetherness. It is part of what kept us together while we found the energy and the skills and things we needed to evolve. When it comes to telling stories right now, I say that’s a good place to start. I’m looking towards evolution.
How about you?
