Posts Tagged ‘news avoidance’
Quiet Time
Even though I continue to avoid exposure to news media, there are still enough trickles of information that I am aware of Marines being ordered to Los Angeles, where citizens are protesting. It is crazy reports like this, reflecting the many lunacies spelled out in Project 2025*, that are happening right before the world’s eyes, that reaffirm my choice to refuse to wallow in real-time reporting.
*(So I’ve read other people reporting, since I haven’t personally looked at the document; I simply voted against anyone who would have anything to do with it)
Instead, I walk outside and listen to the birds and the chirping frogs, bathe in the scenery of green growing plants and trees, and spend some quiet time with the horses.
Last evening, someone was riding a horse along the road at a slow, clop-clop pace, and it got everyone’s attention. Asher’s hackles went up, and he started barking with great purpose. While the other horses retreated to the small paddock, Mia did the opposite and headed all the way to the fence line along the road for a closer inspection.
When her curiosity was satisfied, she decided her return to the rest of the herd should happen at top speed. It is moments like this that make it easy to visualize these thoroughbreds as the race horses they once were. She did one heck of a beautiful sprint.
Long after all the excitement had faded, the horses chose to stay in the small paddock, grazing the grass growing there.
I snapped a photo when Swings was looking right at me, with the fresh branches of the once mighty willow tree on full display just beyond her.
When the evils of the current US administration have reached their peak, and people like me are incarcerated for any reason they choose, I will conjure memories of standing with these horses and the peacefulness I was able to experience at one time in my life. […that’s hyperbole (I hope) – if you didn’t sense it]
I will try not to recall the unhealthy air quality we were enduring at the time.
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Injustice Exists
At times, the expedition I’m on to avoid news media leaves me oblivious to current events happening in other parts of the world until someone brings them to my attention. In reassessing my goal and the progress thus far, Cyndie and I chatted about how news avoidance was going for each of us.
She mentioned that injustices of the past have been survived by many people for ages and that injustices will continue to exist in the future. Coexisting with the atrocities perpetrated is an unpleasant reality. My immediate survival mode involves “turtling” to preserve my sanity and hopefully build some reserves of fortitude to face inequities that close in on my range of influence.
As a beacon of hope, love, and beauty, I present some views of our surrounding natural glory at the lake up near Hayward. Pictures we took on a walk yesterday in the cold on the last day of November.
This morning, there are four white swans swimming around between our shore and the island nearby, frequently plunging their heads deep to feed, with their tail feathers pointing straight to the sky. They have no concerns about what the citizens of the world will face in the coming months and years as they consume some food and give their wings a break from their migration to winter quarters.
I can relate to them entirely. Maybe I am “swanning,” not turtling.
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Relative Something 