Overwhelmed: Bigger than me

Courtesy Astronomy Picture of the Day

For today, I think I'll inagurate a topic that one can search for in the blog, if you're feeling like I feel today, that is, overwhelmed by forces that a puny citizen like me can't seem to do anything about. I read somewhere that one strategy for people who feel full of fear, or depressed, by news of terrorists, or epidemics like Mad Cow disease, or just the news in general is to, in general, inhibit their uptake of news. That way, they won't get depressed or feel like they are frozen in their homes, unable to go outside and face the world.

I don't trust that strategy, because I don't trust the people who advise it; it sounds too much like those cops who tell me "nothing's wrong here, just go on about your business" as they hassle street people for, well, standing in the street. There's all kinds of stuff wrong with the world that really needs to be addressed, and the people who have told me they are handling it are decidely not handling it. So the topic will focus on things that seem to be really, really big, and try to bring these problems down to a manageable size, or at least my reaction to them down to a doable, realizable concept, strategy, or worldview.

Because if I keep watching the news and do nothing about all this crap, I'll go nuts.