November 4, 2024

Unplug.

Reposted from Cal Newport’s Blog (original link):

I’m writing this post about eighteen hours before the first polls open on Election Day, and it feels tense out there. The New York Times, for example, just posted an article headlined: “How Americans Feel About the Election: Anxious and Scared.

Based on extensive interviews conducted over this past weekend, the Times concludes:

“Americans across the political spectrum reported heading to the polls in battleground states with a sense that their nation was coming undone. While some expressed relief that the long election season was finally nearing an end, it was hard to escape the undercurrent of uneasiness about Election Day.”
These results probably come as no surprise.

The question then becomes what to do with this anxiety. The first step, of course, is to vote — and not just vote, but to approach your decision honestly and dispassionately. By the time you read this, you’ve likely already completed this step.

But then what?

Here I have a suggestion that I think could be healing for all points of the political spectrum: use the stress of this election to be the final push needed to step away from the exhausting digital chatter that’s been dominating your brain. Take a break from social media. Stop listening to news podcasts. Unsubscribe, at least for a while, from those political newsletters clogging your inbox with their hot takes and tired in-fighting.

I suggest you switch to a slower pace of media consumption. Don’t laugh at this suggestion, because I’m actually serious: consider picking up the occasional old-fashioned printed newspaper (free from algorithmic optimization and click-bait curation) at your local coffee shop or library to check in, all at once, on anything major going on in the world. I think I might setup a Sunday-only paper subscription as my main source of news this winter.

Equally important is how you redirect your newly liberated attention. Consider aiming it toward real community, with real people who actually live near you, to retrain your brain to stop thinking of the world as hopelessly fractured into vicious tribes. (If right now you’re scouring this post to seek evidence as to whether I’m friend or foe, then you’re already severely suffering from this malady. )

Consider reading books again. There’s a pleasure in the conquest of deep ideas that’s been lost as we thrashed in a digital sea of churning distraction. Spend more time in nature to discover that despite the apocalyptic tenor of the online world, its analog counterpart persists, and is beautiful.

The Republic will still stand without our constant digital vigilance. But it’s unclear if our mental health can survive the status quo.

Voted outside 640px.

Harris/Walz 2024.

 

Tomorrow is Election Day in the United States. I see one sane choice for the White House. She’s not perfect. There will never be a perfect candidate, but she won’t do things like put Robert F Kennedy, Jr in charge of health care; instead she’ll working on expanding Medicare to help our elderly in their golden years.

She won’t deport _legal_ immigrants in massive deportation exercises. She’ll once again work on the largest border security bill ever proposed, one that was shot down _by the GOP_ after it was successfully negotiated across party lines earlier this year.

She’ll give women the ability to make their own choices over their own body, preventing American women from dying after being denied critical health care, such as what happened to a teenager in Texas (again) just last week. I know too many women that have made that choice in the past, whether it was around the safety of their own body or a matter of circumstance. I will never understand why women who made that unfortunate choice in the past would willfully deny future generations of women to have the same control over their body. 

She respects the men and women serving our country in the military. The men and women that fight for this country are not losers, and anyone that calls them that does not deserve to be president. I feel very strongly about this. How can anyone support someone that denigrates any member of the military? Dozens and dozens of the highest ranking officials in our military support Harris/Walz. Why wouldn’t we listen to them?

Tariffs on Chinese goods? If you think your pocketbook is hurting today, wait until prices go up to cover the costs of new tariffs on Chinese goods.

And if you’ve read Project 2025, embraced by Trump, you know that a vote in his direction will likely embroil our marriage in a legal battle to prevent it from being dissolved. 

Look, I get that everyone has their own reasons for casting their vote. Your vote is your voice. Your voice speaks to your character, to your moral foundation, with that vote. 

Please, let’s bring an end to this seemingly endless cycle of chaos. Let’s move on one of the biggest charlatans from New York in the history of this country. Vote Harris/Walz 2024.