Bad: Dumbheads and Facebook. Good: This One Teen With Moxie and This One Turtle
All this plus I agonize over what kind of distorted reality to choose and Saturn eats a baby
Hey, guess what! Chicken butt. Yes. Of course. But furthermore: please remember that our show exists because of listener donations. If you’ve donated, THANK YOU. If not, it’s easy: go here, pick a level that works for you, then select DEPRESH MODE from the list of shows.
Choose Your Own Weird-venture
My therapist’s offices are open. We can do in-person visit. And there was a tight little window in there where we could do in-person without masks, provided we were vaccinated. Now it’s in-person but masked, even if it’s just two people over six feet apart, both vaccinated.
And here’s what I have to say about mask rules: NOTHING! Because I’m not a scientist or a public health expert. I let those people think about those things with their particular brains. I allow myself the pleasure and ease of just doing what I’m told by well-informed sensible minds. Are these rules overly cautious? Yeah, probably, but everyone chooses to err on that side because HOLY SHIT PANDEMIC HAVEN’T YOU HEARD?
So I just flippin’ do what I’m told.
Are there times to defy unjust laws and rules? Hell yes. Of course. This is not one of them.
Anyway, so I had an appointment today and my therapist gave me a choice: unmasked online or masked in-person. It took me a while to decide.
Option A: unmasked online. I could do this from my home. No one but me would be home at the time so I needn’t worry about being overheard. There would be no (very short) trip between here and there. I didn’t even have to leave my chair. But she, my therapist, would be a two-dimensional head floating in a box in front of me. BUT! I could see the full range of facial expression from her and she could see that from me.
Option B: masked in-person. I could be in a neutral space to talk about things without my work all around me like at my desk. Masks would obscure our faces so we would have to communicate through the words themselves, chosen and spoken, along with maybe some eyebrows. I would have to leave home but when you work from home, leaving once in a while is a pretty good idea. And she would appear in three dimensions and not decapitated.
Things? In this society we’re in? Are still so fucking weird, you guys. We’re in a world where seeking help and relief involves this A vs. B decision and it’s such a weird one.
I chose B. It was close.
When you work hard, you get tired, it turns out
Several years ago now, I did some EMDR sessions to deal with a trauma issue I was having a hard time with. You can read about these sessions in my book. If you don’t know what that is, follow the link in the previous sentence. Anyway, those sessions are intense and long. I remember taking a whole day off for some of them because what I really wanted to do after they were over was to go home and sleep. And here’s the thing: all I was doing was thinking.
I’m told the need to crash out after EMDR is very common.
“Thinking!,” you say, incredulously. Yes, thinking. Hard intense thinking. Thinking in such a way that my mind could be re-trained to re-route traumatic experiences to more helpful places. It’s kind of like the brain’s system of hydromodification.
Hydromodification is the alteration of the natural flow of water through a landscape, and often takes the form of channel modification or channelization. It is one of the leading sources of impairment in streams, lakes, estuaries, aquifers, and other water bodies in the United States.
But with thoughts instead of water.
I’ve been tired a lot over the last year and a half. So have you. And if you’re worried about it, by all means go see a doctor. But allow perhaps for the possibility that shit is so incredibly stressful right now and that it requires a lot of thinking. Thinking about masks, thinking about vaccines, thinking about the willfully ignorant jerks who are deliberately ruining everything, thinking about an uncertain future in an uncertain place.
Like, maybe your brain is tired. Maybe you’re exhausted because of course you are. That’s a link to an article in Time about why everyone is so exhausted. It includes this:
Google searches for the phrase “Why am I tired all the time?” have been at their historical highs between July 2021 and September 2021.
Facebook learns that it’s hurting kids, keeps hurting kids
Maybe you missed this recent news that Facebook studied the effects of Instagram, a company it owns, on young people.
“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” the researchers reportedly wrote. Facebook also reportedly found that 14% of boys in the U.S. said Instagram made them feel worse about themselves.
Facebook did this study and then apparently sat on it for a long time.
The most problematic part of Instagram in this research is the Explore function, which is a curated tab of various Instagram accounts of people looking impossibly glamorous and generally thin.
In a blog post, Instagram’s head of public policy, Karina Newton, responded to the reporting and said the company is researching ways to pull users away from dwelling on certain types of Instagram posts.
“We’re exploring ways to prompt them to look at different topics if they’re repeatedly looking at this type of content,” Newton said. “We’re cautiously optimistic that these nudges will help point people towards content that inspires and uplifts them, and to a larger extent, will shift the part of Instagram’s culture that focuses on how people look.”
OH OKAY, KARINA. YOUR PLAN IS TO NUDGE THEM AWAY.
YOUR PLAN IS TO NUDGE THEM
NUDGE, KARINA?
OKAY GREAT WELL THANKS FOR NUDGING. THAT OUGHT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.
Facebook is now planning a new version of Instagram for even younger kids. They say it will be really safe and healthy. Like a kind of, I don’t know, diet heroin.
The willfully ignorant anti-science jerks
Everyone who is eligible for the covid vaccine should take it. Should have a long time ago, actually. Because of these selfish jerks, we all must suffer the ongoing stress and frustration and, most importantly, rampant death of a pandemic that is lasting longer than it should be.
One cannot control what emotions one feels. I feel anger toward these people. Exhaustion, yes, of course, but also a lot of resentment and anger.
One CAN control what one does with one’s emotions. Assault is a bad idea for a variety of reasons. Screaming alone in a closet is not a great option.
But we do get to choose. And maybe one day I’ll decide.
This kid has an idea. (Link goes to a video on Reddit of a teenager being acosted by a zealot and handling it in a profane and perfect way.)
Hey, guy. Look at this guy!
The winners of the Ocean Photography Awards for 2021 have been announced.
I like that guy!