If there’s one thing that I’ve been trying to do in the last three weeks of self-isolation, it’s doing almost anything to distract myself from the nightmare timeline that we’re living in. While everything has been chaos in the United States since at least 2010 (probably as early as 2000), the alternate timeline in which all reason has been purged from U.S. society began in earnest in 2016 and has reached astronomical proportions of absolute batshittery since the emergence of COVID-19 as a major threat to our way of life. Everything from the administration refusing to take it seriously, failing over and over again to get the ball rolling on creating more supply to meet medical demand, the absolutely mind-boggling audacity of the admin telling state governors they shouldn’t get aid because they weren’t nice enough to the Orange Mussolini, to states outright declaring the need for inter-state collaboration because the fed refuses to do its job, and on and on and on. It’s honestly impossible to keep up with the absolute shitshow that is this administration and its response to the pandemic.
In the last three weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find literally anything else to pay attention to because looking at what is happening in this country fills me with such rage and dread that I worry I will just start screaming into the void. We should not be here. We should not be in a situation in which states are being forced to “figure it out on their own” or everyday citizens are shoved into isolation without financial relief. We just shouldn’t be here.
So, the game has been distraction. I can’t fix literally anything happening around me. I’ve already voted in my state’s primary, and outside of my extremely limited influence to get students to register to vote (no, I don’t tell them who to vote for even if it’s damn obvious who I’m voting for) and generally telling people to stay safe, there’s just nothing I can do. Like so many Americans, I am virtually powerless in the face of this historic catastrophe. Like so many Americans, I have a mouth, and I want to scream even if screaming will do little.
Thus far, distractions have come in the form of watching Star Trek, setting up writing groups for fiction, talking to my girlfriend who lives on the other side of the world, reading, trying to blog 5-6 times a week about anything else but the real world (this post being an exception), and scrounging around to find any other kind of distraction I can. And, phew, do I need more distractions…
Distraction is, at this point, my only coping mechanism. It’s the only thing to keep me from going absolutely out of my mind. This pandemic mixed with overt corruption on unprecedented scales mixed with greed and a horrific lack of empathy and a total abdication of responsibility to lead… This is so much. It’s too much. And if I’m here, as a person who just over a year ago achieved a small measure of privilege that includes semi-financial security (with debt, heh) and access to resources I can afford, I cannot imagine how so many others are feeling. Many of my friends are authors, adjunct instructors, graduate students, freelance editors, or, in some cases, now unemployed. If it feels like I’m standing in front of a freight train, paralyzed and horrified, I cannot begin to understand what so many others in less privileged positions must feel. So, in a way, there’s this immense feeling that maybe I need to be vocal. Maybe I need to scream, because I can scream at all this. But there’s also this feeling that if I do, I’ll just unravel. If I keep watching, the chord of sanity will come undone and I will collapse in some metaphorical puddle of human nothing (drama!).
So, I turn to distractions. And I turn to things that are productive. I turn to things that allow me to give a little back (got a live event thing I’m working on). I buy books. I share joy…sorta. Like a lot of Americans, I feel like I’m just surviving…
And I’m rambling.
So, look. If you’re where I am in your head, and you’re doing what you can to distract yourself from all of this, let me ask: what are your go-to distractions? Share them in the comments if you can. Give people ideas on how to distract themselves.
