I wanted to thank my readers for the emails, comments, well-wishes, encouragement and support while I took a break. They meant a great deal and inspired me to continue.
I took a complete social media break for a couple of weeks. I spent time walking, reading, and watching movies. In the beginning it was difficult to concentrate, but it got better.
I was so burned out by all the information and bad news pummelling my head and heart, seemingly every few minutes. The words ‘influencer’ and ‘TikTok’ made me want to scream. People doing stupid things and our world collapsing around us with wars, riots, ‘internet sleuths’, ‘experts’ and ‘influencers’ everywhere.
I am not sure about you but it feels as though if the past 8 years were a movie, people would lambast it for being unbelievable. Kurt Vonnegut said that the difference between writing non-fiction and fiction was that fiction had to make sense. Reality has no obligation to make sense. It is exhausting living through a time that will fill several chapters in history books. The Trump shooting showed that 6mm could have completely changed history, and made me obsess about how often we have cheated death by seconds in our lives. I was saved by minutes during the terror attack in 2017. I stopped to buy something and if I had not, I would have been directly in the path of the truck.
I wonder if things really are as bad as they feel, or if the instant news cycle, and rumours and misinformation on social media has made it all seem very dramatic? In previous crises, news was contained more locally and usually with only one or two channels of information. You heard something on the radio or read it in the local news the day after.
