Everything is become a point of contention during this chaotic times. While I try to keep abreast of what’s going on in the news while simultaneously not burning my mental health to a complete pile of cinders, there are times when I want to step away from the noise and just engage in my various hobbies.
This is not easy to achieve in 2025.
Storm chasing groups and forums are full of political “banter” around the science of weather in general and if it’s valid or not. Because Oklahoma is trying to pass a bill that would involve issuing “storm chaser licenses”, there’s that whole political discussion and then, because the storm chasing community is composed of people from all walks of life, there’s some lively discussions of what type of person should actually be chasing storms. As an aside, one of the best storm chasers I’ve ever followed online (and met in person) is a trans woman. I have no idea how she deals with some of the folks in the more rural areas of the country but I applaud her for being her authentic self.
So when I step away from the extraneous noise around the storm chasers, I start delving into my geekish tech hobbies. While I am not happy with Apple these days for many reasons, for the average consumer I still think that Apple is the safest, most productive, and privacy minded option in the space. Tim Cook’s glee around Trump going back to the White House seems like a million years ago and while Apple has been making some questionable choices with their latest hardware and software releases, I still have thousands of dollars invested in Apple equipment that is perfectly functional. I have a whole blog entry in formulation around how I’ve moved away from some of Apple’s services, but I’m going to be running MacOS and iOS/iPadOS on my devices for the foreseeable future, especially if Trump the Tariff Taxation Man keeps lobbing tariffs all over the place and causing the price of everything to continue to skyrocket. I should not be shamed nor should I feel shame for using computing equipment I already have and needlessly throwing things into the landfill.
The other thing I’m finding exhausting is the number of people that seem to be outraged all the time about everything. There is plenty to be outraged about. There’s too much to be outraged about and the United States has turned into the biggest shitshow I’ve witnessed in 56 years. Yes, absolutely. But in order to maintain some sort of mental health balance one can not be completely stressed out about absolutely everything all the time. It is a waste of energy. I mean, screaming into your Facebook feed every 10 minutes about the latest thing F47 did is reaching… whom? One assumes your feed is read by your friends on Facebook. I would think your friends would think along the same general lines as you and share approximately the same moral foundation. If not, that’s a whole different conversation that should be saved for the next Thanksgiving dinner or Family Reunion. Maybe I’m intruding with my Facebook connection. Delete delete delete. And, I get it, as I get older I have more retired friends that have oodles of time to keep track of all this stuff and time to get outraged. It might be a good moment to step away from the Facebook and call a cherished loved one or something.
This chaos is (probably) going to go on for four years if not longer. It is imperative that we save our mental and physical strength for the really big things. Pick your battles and all that. What brand of detergent you buy or what coffee you drink should not be a reason for political debate.
