I got political again today. Eventually.

It went exactly like this :

I started out with just the stuff about the webcam working, but initially I then blathered on about the games I am currently playing till I hit the point where I realized I was boring myself and threw all that bullshit away.

And I like that I did that. I feel like I am maturing as a video maker and part of that is developing the backbone to say, “This is crap, fuck it, I’m starting over. ”

What followed was ten uncomfortable minutes of me desperately trying to think of something to talk about and drawing a total blank.

Always painful, those sorts of moments. One of the hardest parts of being a creator, at least to me, is making it through times like that.

Eventually I remembers the stuff about the outrage machine that has been waiting for me to write about it for months now and kept getting “bumped” by other topics.

Well today was the day that topic finally made it to the stage.

And it’s important stuff, I think. The internet is great at giving you more of what you like, and it judges what you like by what you engage with, and it neither knows nor cares whether you’re engaging with it because you’re happy or because you’re angry.

So if your feed is full of modern misery, it’s because according to the internet, that is what you “like” to see.

And outrage is addictive. It’s just like any other rage disorder. The “high” comes from the adrenaline rush and the way said rush makes you feel righteous and motivated and pure and makes it seem like things are much simpler than they are.

Hence why old people eagerly consume media where people like Fox News deliberately stoke their anger because being outraged makes them feel stronger and more alive.

And that goes for the left, too. There is a reason my Bluesky feed is full of hysterical hand-wringing about how awful Trump is and how the latest atrocity is a sure sign that America is sliding into fascism and any minute now there’ll be a gas chamber on every street corner and concentration camps as common as 7-11’s.

And they’re not wrong except possible in degree. But at some point you have to stop caterwauling about how awful it all is and start doing something about it.

And that means giving up on the outrage. Feel free to ignore the news for a while. Completely skip over an entire brace of outrages and blatant affronts.

These things do not require your outrage. You not being around to be frothing with rage about them will make no difference whatsoever to the big picture. You can take a pass on all his latest horribleness and nothing of value will be lost.

And something of value will be gained if it lets you concentrate more fully on driving that spear right into the conspicuously corpulent heart of Trump’s regime.

At some point you have to turn the damn alarm off and fight the fucking fire.

But of course, that’s not fun. That sounds like it might involve work and effort and risk and the horror of spending a few minutes less than optimally entertained.

Well fuck that, better the world should burn (and it is) than us having to give up even a single precious nanosecond of our “me” time.

And I am no better. Somehow we have grown incredibly dependent on these security blankets of entertainment and distraction and the very idea of leaving the comfort of them voluntarily feels like we’re being asked to do a spacewalk without a suit.

And I don’t know what to do about that.

More after the break.

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What to do about that

Oh, I dunno.

I know that stirring calls to virtuous action are meaningless. Sure, doing all you can do to bring down Trump is the “right” thing to do from the point of view of the future, but we don’t live entirely for the benefit of the generations to come, we live here now, in the present, and in the present we have to cope.

Maybe that’s the problem : that our lives are something we have to cope with rather than just relax and enjoy. I’ve written before about this modern treadmill of spending half your waking hours at work and half recovering from work is insane.

And of course it’s school that sets us up for this. The transition from hating school to hating your job is almost seamless.

That’s why homework is such an affront to a child’s sensibilities. It’s like school is invading your precious not-school time. No fair!

And of course, once people have kids and spouses and households and extended friend groups and so forth, that “me” time becomes even more precious and the idea of sacrificing any of it for abstract goals outside of your life, no matter how important, seems even more unthinkable.

And I mean, surely somebody else will take care of it, right? Because clearly somebody needs to do something about Trump. We’re quite firm on how other people should definitely be doing something about it, those lazy bums.

Just not us, because we have lives and kids and so much stuff to do.

I guess that’s why it has to have a personal impact before it stirs people to action. That takes it from the realm of the news and doomscrolling into actual, y’know, reality, and makes people see it as a threat to their families, and that can inspire action.

Then again, so does the prospect of maybe getting laid at the rally.

It takes all kinds of motives.

The next big rally is on October 13. I feel like the clock is ticking in a sense because these rallies are going to become rather sparsely attended once winter kicks in.

Maybe make the one after this one Christmas themed?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.