The first full day…
Jan. 21st, 2025 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onepageatatimeSo today, I started a vaguely-defined creative project. Mostly just "do something creative each day." It's an attempt to take control of what little I can control, but lose my head over the many many things I have no control over, especially given the new Administration.
Unlike most of my past projects, where my focus is very much on the final product and getting it seen by other people, this one is about the creativity itself. If something begs to be shared, I'll share it, but that's not my focus. That's fortunate, because today's attempt at poetry was particularly horrible. (It doesn't help that it focused more on the larger situation than I want to, and so got depressing fast.)
But it's a response to the fact that… I don't feel like there are many spaces right now where I feel safe sharing my voice. (Not all of that is related to politics, some of it is personal.) And… if I allow myself to be as squashed as I can imagine becoming, then I will do nobody any good, not even myself and my wife.
Some of it is also just finding new ways of spending my time. For many years, I would have described myself as a news junkie (probably even before I really understood the last word of that phrase). From middle school on, I was always aware of news happenings, wanting to watch CNN or its Canadian equivalents, and concerned with how we were governed. In the last decade or so that has gradually been beat out of me: I know that I can't watch in real-time the words and actions of this president… even cutting back in his first term was really hard on me. So far, the extent of my news-watching since the inauguration has been the end of our local morning show and the EyeOpener, the 90-second summary of the day's sights and sounds at the start of CBS Mornings (before returning to local news).
I know I will absorb more than I want to of his actions… which, given their importance, is only right… but I can work to consume them in the ways that prevent me from becoming overwhelmed and useless: more in print (even if that print is on a screen) than on live television, for example.
Part of me is trying to find ways to escape into sports. I appreciate its unscripted nature. And I wonder if I will delve into statistics and the like (especially since my biggest problem with sports seems to be The Sports Fan, many of whom are… overly negative and/or argumentative, and that's assuming that they aren't part of the significant but loud minority of fans who wholeheartedly embrace various intolerable -isms, like racism, sexism, etc).
I feel a little powerless right now, and this is mostly doing my part to prevent myself from being overrun, to live to fight another day.
I wish I had something more eloquent, but… for now, I will seek out and find those whose words feed me, whose actions support me, and whose lives shine light in the world
Unlike most of my past projects, where my focus is very much on the final product and getting it seen by other people, this one is about the creativity itself. If something begs to be shared, I'll share it, but that's not my focus. That's fortunate, because today's attempt at poetry was particularly horrible. (It doesn't help that it focused more on the larger situation than I want to, and so got depressing fast.)
But it's a response to the fact that… I don't feel like there are many spaces right now where I feel safe sharing my voice. (Not all of that is related to politics, some of it is personal.) And… if I allow myself to be as squashed as I can imagine becoming, then I will do nobody any good, not even myself and my wife.
Some of it is also just finding new ways of spending my time. For many years, I would have described myself as a news junkie (probably even before I really understood the last word of that phrase). From middle school on, I was always aware of news happenings, wanting to watch CNN or its Canadian equivalents, and concerned with how we were governed. In the last decade or so that has gradually been beat out of me: I know that I can't watch in real-time the words and actions of this president… even cutting back in his first term was really hard on me. So far, the extent of my news-watching since the inauguration has been the end of our local morning show and the EyeOpener, the 90-second summary of the day's sights and sounds at the start of CBS Mornings (before returning to local news).
I know I will absorb more than I want to of his actions… which, given their importance, is only right… but I can work to consume them in the ways that prevent me from becoming overwhelmed and useless: more in print (even if that print is on a screen) than on live television, for example.
Part of me is trying to find ways to escape into sports. I appreciate its unscripted nature. And I wonder if I will delve into statistics and the like (especially since my biggest problem with sports seems to be The Sports Fan, many of whom are… overly negative and/or argumentative, and that's assuming that they aren't part of the significant but loud minority of fans who wholeheartedly embrace various intolerable -isms, like racism, sexism, etc).
I feel a little powerless right now, and this is mostly doing my part to prevent myself from being overrun, to live to fight another day.
I wish I had something more eloquent, but… for now, I will seek out and find those whose words feed me, whose actions support me, and whose lives shine light in the world