Although I sometimes visit America, I find it best not to regard it as a real place. I hope this is a helpful stratagem for some of you.
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Forgot to update yesterday: exercised and meditated. Then at 3PM a friend asked me to drop what I was doing and pick him up from UCLA hospital in Westwood and bring him home to the valley. So that was roughly two hours in the car in LA traffic. I may count that as my service for the rest of the week. Kidding.
Ran and meditated this morning. Itās in-person day at the office so there will be lots of opportunities to be useful to other people.
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Thatās basically how we think about Australia. Itās very hard to believe kangaroos are a real thing.
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That is how this American feels about Florida.
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Yesterday was my first run in a week and a half because I was on a trip, and holy mother of God was my body tired.
Anyway, meditated and walked today.
Also, my kid has had some cool stuff happen - he was a local organizer for a US Senator when she visited his college town, and then was invited to do some paid campaign work on the other side of the state. So heās doing that today through Saturday and is beyond excited. Iām so happy for and proud of him.
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Thata awesome LFS, throw an attaboy his way for me.
With my current bout of existential insomnia, I am going to take steps towards what you are working on above, and adding an additional piece.
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Meditate, even if just for a little bit (not done yet today but will do this afternoon)
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Walk everyday the next week (this evening)
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Random act of kindness (Made slow cooker meatballs for my work folk today for lunch)
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1 hour off screentime where I will engage in reading for pleasure (this evening after my walk. Restarting Mistborn and really looking forward to it.)
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Thatās good stuff, I like it.
For the walkers; find hills. It is hard to think about things when you are suffering.
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Drugs ftw
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I have been reading Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg and just a few moments ago I generalized some folks as ādeplorable garbageā on the book of faces. I can recognize that my needs are not being met and I still have some work to do. So I am just checking in.
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Iāve been getting clips from Support Your Local Sheriff in my Youtube feed and think that might be a great distraction tomorrow, that and Support Your Local Gunfighter should be some good brain bleach tomorrow.
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I have to thank the moderators of this forum
for giving me a long time out, in the interim I have found a lot of peace by tuning out mainstream media and only consuming 1st order sources on topics I actively was researching and interested in learning about (no articles summarizing articles that are summarizing an abstract of some meta study in a crap journal, etc).
No mainstream news. None. Itās shifted in a very bad way the last few years and there arenāt any good ones left except local news, and even then its clickbaity and not real journalism. If I must read a printed newspaper article I will (LA times isnāt that terrible) but absolutely only when necessary.
Meditation/yoga. I shirked this for a long time but have found a tremendous amount of peace with a particular form of tantric yoga I find tolerable and easy enough for me to do.
Proper sleep, if you have nightmares about the election or wake up because of anxiety about the future, I found a source of that was doomscrolling - including this site and others.
Accepting I am such a minute cog in the wheel of this clusterfuck that I canāt possibly affect any outcome of it even if I wanted to or no matter how hard I cared.
Volunteering locally, getting involved in local sports (for me baseball and softball).
Probably isnāt worth much but 4 years ago this result wouldāve made me feel very, very differently and I attribute it to some changes I have been making and continue to make. Hope everyone is well and taking care of themselves.
So, uh, whatās the plan for mental wellness after the election?
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bump
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There is absolutely no fucking way I am following the Trump 2.0 administrationās activities day by day, thatās for sure.
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Right now, for me, itās taking it one moment at a time. Experience tells me that at some point itāll be one hour at a time, and eventually one day at a time. How I want to react is super dark, and if I think further than the next 60 seconds thatās where my mind immediately goes. But I have a 19 year old and a 16 year old and they still need me. I also canāt pretend that Iām OK, that everything is OK. Right now it isnāt, or sure doesnāt feel that way.
I woke up at 3:30AM, meditated, walked the dog, then ran 3 1/2 miles. Itās around 50 degrees, dry and breezy, pretty much ideal running weather. I just had breakfast and will soon have my americano and do Connections and Wordle. Then Iāll take it from there.
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Youāve got it. You canāt let is crush you as a person. Itās the people that care about others that are upset about a Trump win, but you canāt help anyone else if you arenāt well yourself.
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Done
As a single guy, pulling out of the doom spiral feels like itās going to be particularly difficult this time around. Basically in full fuck it mode. Being on a poker downswing compounded by losing a bunch of money on the election is certainly not helping.
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