Your help, please

Sticker in a public toilet. 😆

To make a long story ”Serenity ‘Prayer’”** short*: I am trying to make my life free of political news. 

I believe in emptiness and am working on it (I swear) but I am not there at all when it comes to politics in the US. (Anne and I have talked very seriously about moving to Europe for the next four years, but being in Portugal and Greece showed that my Seasonal Affective Disorder is still there.)

This change will be very hard. I have read nearly every Kevin Drum post for decades, and also read Andrew Tobias all the time. And the most difficult is no longer watching Colbert; there are probably very few people who have seen more of his monologues than I have, going back to the first The Colbert Report. He helped get me through W’s administration. 

But now it is just too much.

I'm even giving up Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me.

So I ask you four things:

1. Please don’t send me news I can’t act on. E.g., anything that might put certain bad people in my brain.

2. Please do send news that provides information that will make me more effective at reducing suffering or being a better friend.

3. Please do send me anything funny that doesn’t have to do with politics. E.g. Colbert’s B-blocks (“Meanwhile,” “Cyborgasm”). 

4. Finally: I would love to make this blog a source of laughter and/or useful information. Please let me know how I can do this better. mattballaz (at) gmail.com or this form

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* Readers know I don't have a high opinion of humanity. But this country re-elected Obama in tough economic times. And Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bernie Sanders were all on the same side this time, opposing some of the absolute worst people in the world. That schizophrenia, combined with the victory of hate ... I just can't get past that. 

** Along the lines of “Very Little Really Matters” in Losing:

Today, we are bombarded with reports of poverty, war, mass shootings, abuse of animals, attacks on LGBTQ people, subjugation of women. It is difficult to avoid cruelty. And then, social media is the perfectly-optimized tool to program us with anxiety and depression.

But taking in horror after horror doesn’t make you a good person. Making a difference makes you a good person.

Choose where you can make a difference. You don’t need to know everything. You don’t need to read or watch everything…. 

You don’t need to be depressed. You don’t deserve to be depressed. You can be happy and still make a difference. Indeed, I would contend that being happy makes it easier to make a difference over the long haul – both in your ability to work constructively and in the example you set for others.