I have been eligible to vote in American elections since the early 90’s but the first time I actually voted was in 2004.  I hadn’t previously voted because I was a member of a religion which specifically prohibited voting.  Weird, I know.  As soon as I was no longer a member of that group, I got excited about the opportunity to vote and that year I supported John Kerry in his failed bid to unseat incumbent president (and Rove/Cheney ventriloquist’s dummy) W.  It was an extremely disappointing experience that left me profoundly disturbed.  I found it very hard to understand why anybody who was even marginally conscious about anything happening in the country could ever vote for a man with the apparent IQ of a sea cucumber, but clearly I misunderestimated my fellow citizens.  It wouldn’t be the last time.

People, it turns out, are gullible, easily manipulated, unreliable, and generally bad at critical thinking.  Also, for the most part, poor judges of character.  I suppose I kinda knew this before 2004, but I was working pretty darn hard to avoid thinking about it.  I was aware that politics were a thing and people were passionate about them but I had also been taught that none of it mattered, it was all equally corrupt and bad, and the whole “political system of things” was doomed to destruction anyhow so I didn’t think I needed to worry my pretty little head about it.  And so I didn’t.

Once I started to realize that politics is simply our name for “how the human species makes group decisions instead of just killing each other” I began to realize that I was at the mercy of the collective bad decision making, poor critical thinking skills, and gullibility of my neighbors and there was no Jesus on horse with a flaming sword a-comin’ to save the day.  That was terrifying and I would like to report that it has gotten less so, but that would be a lie.  It is not less terrifying and people do not instill me with any more confidence today than they did before.  Probably less since 2016.

But here we all are and 2020 is here and the POTUS is a mob boss, the Russians and Republicans are strategic allies, every Democratic candidate on the table has a fatal flaw, and every left-leaning person I know is fighting with every other left-leaning person so we’re probably gonna get twelve more years of He Who Shall Not Be Named after he just goes ahead and declares himself president for life and suspends elections and since I am powerless to change these things, I need to figure out how to live with them and, ideally, not enter into a crippling depression.

The simplest option, perhaps the only one that really rises to the level of a solution, is just to tune out.  Go back to how I grew up.  Focus on music, family, personal development, art, and the rest, just show up to vote my conscience but, otherwise, simply ignore all the bad stuff that’s happening.  Don’t follow the news, don’t obsess over the soap opera, keep a distance.

This is much harder to do in my current life than it was when I was growing up.  I grew up in the pre-internet era when news was a paper delivered once a day which I mostly ignored, despite delivering it around the neighborhood.  I read the comics and skimmed the TV listings for movies or shows I might want to record, but beyond that I was pretty much unaware of and uninterested in the world outside my neighborhood.  No social media, no cable news, no office filled with co-workers with opinions.  It was simple.  Now, if I want to see what’s going on my friends lives, I dip into social media and pretty soon I’m seeing political posts and I’m having opinions and the bubble is gone.  I work in an office on a computer all day, the internet is always happening, and I can choose not to look but it takes a lot more self-control.  It’s easy to avoid things that you have to out of your way to see, it’s hard to avoid things that pop up on your screen or arrive in your inbox.

I’m not sure, either, that I would like to return to the ignorance is bliss stage of my life.  I wasn’t just uninformed, I was MIS-informed.  Because I wasn’t aware of actual events actually happening in the world around me, I was able to be fed a bunch of untrue information that formed the basis of the worldview promulgated by my religion and this kept me from thinking for myself for a very long time.  Long story short, I was insulated and thus slow in developing my critical thinking skills about the world even as I developed my intellectual capacities in other areas like music and computer programming.  Once you are out of a bubble, you can’t go back in.  The nature of bubbles is that they pop and then they no longer exist.

At the risk of over-simplifying then, I see three options.  Go back to being Bubble Boy, lose my damn mind over every new outrage, or, option three, balance.

Here are my fledgling rules for finding balance in a world of political insanity:

1. Don’t over-consume.  Read the news once or twice a week to stay informed on major events, but avoid binging, avoid politics talk shows, podcasts, cable news, blogs, and the obsessive 24/7 coverage.

2. Don’t fuel negative feelings, find positive things to do.  When exposed to the latest Trump outrage or Republican violation of law, morality, the constitution, and basic human decency, you can either fume and stew or put something good into the world instead.  Finish an unfinished project, write a song, listen to a new record, watch a classic film you’ve been meaning to watch, read a novel.  The world doesn’t get better without good things happening, do something positive in response to a negative.  If you let bad people and events paralyze you, the end result is less good in the world.

3. Participate, but moderately.  Vote when you get to vote.  Be informed enough to make good decisions.  Maybe even volunteer to do some canvasing, but also refrain from activities that only serve yourself.  Fighting with people online isn’t going to make any change happen.  Neither is checking out completely and staying home.  Participate in the democracy like it matters but don’t think your passion can change the world or allow yourself to become so disenchanted that the bastards win.

Informed, meaningful, participation plus just enough news intake, and a commitment to contributing my time and energy to positive things as a way to fight against the negative ones are really the three guidelines I’m going to try to stick to.  Feel free to remind me I said this next time I find myself ranting or obsessing.  I’ll appreciate the reminder even if I say, “I know but….”