It’s bleak today but the flat, grey clouds can’t even work up enough enthusiasm for their job to rain. Two days out from the Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice, the shorted day of the year down here, it’s cold. It’s cold enough here at the beach to wear shoes, although I persevered with my comfy Birkenstocks today. This was a mistake. I was cold all day, even though I could have put the heater on. I did my work, paid my staff, did some invoicing, cold. God only knows why.
Have you heard of SADS? It stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder. I don’t have it, I am just being a drama queen because I haven’t been for a swim since last week. Boo. Hoo. #firstworldstruggle Against my better judgement, I looked up the symptoms and I certainly have a few, if not all of them, so maybe I need to cut myself some slack…or maybe I need to give myself a talking-to.
One thing I definitely need to do is stop listening to all the depressing podcasts about how bad everything is. As much as I love politics and am fascinated by where all this fricking nonsense is going to take us, I need a bit of a time out from it. I blame the second draft of Mimi Gets Away with Murder because I need to research AI. Artificial Intelligence is such a minefield of moral and ethical conundrums that I get sucked back into politics and social justice and how bad Twitter and Facebook are, and how minorities and the growing ‘useless class’ are being left out of the discussion…Yes, ‘useless class’ is a term used to describe all the people who cannot find meaningful work due to the disappearing traditional manufacturing jobs. And no, a Universal Basic Income probably isn’t the answer. People need meaning and connection… and there I go again. It’s serious stuff but I can’t immerse myself in it without getting really down, so I’m pulling myself back up. Positive podcasts, a funny book (I’ll put Sapiens aside for a week…) And right now I’m off to tap dancing again.
Cheerio.
I seldom blog about politics anymore. I realized that the people who already agreed with me would applaud,the people who disagreed unfollowed, and nobody ever changed their mind.
And it’s not hard to find Other Topics.
You’re absolutely right. It’s a shame that we have lost the ability to discuss the big issues without getting personally invested. I guess it’s because it’s so damn important- we are invested because we’ve all got a lot to lose if the powers that be fuck it up.
“One thing I definitely need to do is stop listening to all the depressing podcasts about how bad everything is.” I could not agree more!