There seems to be an incessant stream of purposeful anxiety production in the air. Warranted and unwarranted worries and concerns are piling up outside on my digital windowsill like industrial soot. It’s tempting to blow them all off and close the shade. Sifting through them has a real cost and it will leave marks on my psyche in spite of my best attempts to avoid the most disturbing items. Media triage has become a daily routine.

1. Is it real? Is it spam, AI or otherwise manipulative fakery?
2. Is it important enough to begin checking?
3. Is it an actual event that is actually occurring or is it someone worrying about possibilities?
4. Is it gossip or an unsubstantiated rumor? Can I tell?
5. Is it within my sphere of influence? Can I do anything about it?
6. What should I do about it if it has passed all the previous sorting?

What’s that? Do I do this for everything? Nearly everything, yes. Since politics includes most of life the verification of data and choosing what I let past the barricades and what I let flow on by has become a time-consuming but important task. There are more things going on in the world that break my heart than I can possibly alchemize before they consume me. There are much fewer things that I can actually accomplish.

Doing things and accomplishing things are different. I can come here to WordPress and write about hungry people and feeding them. That would be doing something. But if I work in my kitchen, cook up some food, and then walk myself down to the pharmacy on the corner and hand it out to the homeless people that gather there that would maybe accomplish something. A short-lived accomplishment is better than nothing. We can never fix it all but that is a sorry excuse for not trying.

If I don’t filter the incoming slurry I become reactionary with my emotions up for grabs on a first come first served basis. That is an unhealthy roller-coaster where world views are formed based on the latest emotional cattle prod. People are sending all this negativity out into the world on purpose. It might happen organically but this level of constant push and pull is being used to create outcomes. It doesn’t need to be a conspiracy, each group, company, marketing department, and individual are using this to further their goals. Whether it’s too increase sales of their prepper items or increase clicks on their videos, it’s all with purpose. They’ve been selling things with fear for as long as I can remember. It’s the second best marketing tactic.

From 1988 ‘Scrooged’

Even the original used fear. But maybe it would seem less crass due to its goal.

“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

No matter the goal of the entity using fear to sell their side of things, it took me decades to learn to regulate my fear. (PTSD) I am quite unwilling at this point to let fear run wild in my life ever again. Rarely does any stranger have our best interests at heart when they resort to using fear. Our nervous systems are not designed to live in survival mode at all times. Cortisol and adrenaline have specific purposes and are unhealthy when we are overexposed to them. Although it requires wading through some messy emotional waters, sorting and choosing what is real, what we can change, and what we need to pay attention to, can be empowering.