The Worry List
I never have been in despair about the world. I’ve been enraged by it. I don’t think I’m in despair. I can’t afford despair.
We live in unsettling times. Everywhere I turn I hear conversations about violence, and depending on who’s speaking, these conversations are shadowed with fear or anger or, disturbingly, pride.
As an American, I’ve been focused lately on the state violence, growing social unrest, constitutional rights violations such as the silencing of free speech and arrests of journalists, and the increase of Christian nationalism and authoritarianism. But I know the world at large has seen monumental suffering; there is no end to pain.
Sometimes I think we are not equipped to take in the information of millions of people struggling every day. Social media and lightning-quick news updates have not been kind on our nervous systems, and our brains have not evolved to handle this much negative input at once.
