Changed Realities

I suspect that many of us are living 
in disparate realities
right now

There are times when we go about our lives
in much the same way
we did some six months ago

And then times when we wonder
how our reality could be
shifting so dramatically

I am imagining how the world was
not so many generations ago
when most news was local

When news of the larger world
drifted much more slowly
into our lives

I fear we were not meant to absorb
the amount of news and information
coming at us in this current landscape

I fear too that our filters are wearing thin
especially when each and every piece
is marked "Urgent!"

All the recommendations for Self Care focus
on taking time for yourself,
doing what supports you and makes you smile

But what to do with all the news
and information you have absorbed?

Is it important? Or just interesting?
Does it require panic? Or a plan?
Maybe something in between?

Obviously some sorting is needed.

Because if you're going to be stuffing
everything
all at once
into your mind's drawer
and push it closed

You are never going to want to open it again.






3 Comments

Filed under Prose and Poetry

3 Responses to Changed Realities

  1. Elissa Cobb

    I absolutely love this!!!!!!!

  2. Keith Voos

    Yeah, Carol, you identify a big dilemma in living life today. I think that like most everyone, I keep from being gobbled up by that dilemma by a different combination of strategies every day, including sometimes just letting myself feel the despair, frustration, fear and anger until I can get up out of my chair and go outside to commune with trees (my favorite lifeform on this planet) and tend to plants and soils. Some days I seem to be able to tolerate the news, but I take frequent news fasts, too. And I am NOT ashamed to say that on occasion I have pretended it’s just a nightmare that I will soon wake up from. That’s a pretty short-term response, but, hey, it’s nice while it lasts.

  3. Indeed, Carol, I completely agree that “we were not meant to absorb /the amount of news and information /coming at us in this current landscape.” I fear that this “flooding the zone” technique is a deliberate feature of the Project 2025 playbook, designed to keep us too overwhelmed to process it all. I doubt that there is any one single solution to this dilemma, and I definitely agree with your caution against “stuffing everything into your mind’s drawer … and push[ing] it closed”. Somehow, each of us needs to keep that drawer open, sort out what’s most urgently in need of our response, and then find the compassion in ourselves to do whatever we can to take some form of appropriate action.

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