Hey, rock and roll never forgets. The pain in your fingertips will distract you from other, OP-related forms of pain.
There’s really no excuse, as there are hundreds of how-to-play guitar videos on YouTube. There’s also a website that features drastically simplified chording for tons of old rock songs, though I can’t seem to find it right now. Plus, I still have all of my home videos (and tablature charts) of my guitar teacher’s lessons from about five years of sessions.
My thread ignore list just grew this week alone by at least a dozen threads. Since I’ve already learned to not let this shite bug me, this is more to minimize my eyes scrolling and getting distracted by all the garbage I keep seeing as I search for the threads which still actually interest me. And every new day brings a few more to burn kill and send to hell.
It doesn’t hurt that it all has pretty much clinched for me that this is a simulation, and not the real world, tl;dr.
Don’t watch. I plan to vote, then continue avoiding the news, as I have been for quite a while now, watch non-news TV, read for pleasure, and go to bed as usual. Time enough to learn the results when I get up the next morning.
Meanwhile, as I said, I’m avoiding any political news, or news broadcasts in general (other than the weather report), and keeping up with what’s happening here at the Dope.
I checked out from doom-scrolling long ago, and only briefly skim headlines to get the gist nowadays. I stay away from political articles and threads, and I’m a much happier person. I’d be even happier if Mr. brown stopped Trumpscrolling and issuing verbal bulletins on the political asshattery of the day.
I check the headlines with one eye closed–literally–and then get off fast. I was raised to believe it’s my duty as a citizen to stay informed, but I can’t deal with the slow-mo train wreck any more.
I DO have kids, so I feel like I need to stay and fight instead of just giving up, but I’m not 100% sure what that fight will look like.
Italy has apparently changed the requirements for citizenship, so I think I’d be eligible now. I’m seriously considering it. The far right is all too present in Europe, too, though, and I’d hate being that far from my (adult) kids.
I’ve mentioned before that friends of ours finally had enough and decamped to Portugal a couple of years ago, where they are happily living in a large ex-pat community in the Algarve. They spend all their time sightseeing throughout Europe, eating and drinking their merry way along. We’re getting a little long in the tooth for that, and we have relatives here, so it’s an unlikely move for us.
I can only do so much. I need to keep my sanity so apart from a few glimpses here and there I’m not following politics this time.
Whatever happens will happen and I guess I’ll have to deal or die.
Que sera sera.
Almost tempted to start a Pit thread on all the Chicken Little threads-I just had to killfile another one, which said Biden allegedly confided in a friend that he is considering dropping out. Another Doper quickly debunked the story-which ran in the NY Times note. [it was apparently from 2020]
Right, I can be active in the various ways that are feasible for me and contribute in whatever way to the effort, without indulging in self-harm by insisting on looking at and reacting to every breathless proclamation of either despairing doom or “righteous” glee (depending on direction) that the various entities in the different mediaspheres keep shoving at me.
Day one of my new resolve. Excused myself to the bedroom during the national news last night. Briefly clicked on the NYT this morning and just as quickly left the site after spotting a couple of headlines I didn’t like. Also ignored the paper this morning after seeing “Biden” in the headline.
I have to say that I already feel better after only one day.
I’m going to have to seriously consider this. We’re MSNBC junkies, and lately I’ve found myself saying more and more to my wife, “We have to switch channels, I can’t watch any more of this.” I am often in genuine despair.
The Serenity Prayer is very apt for these times.
I decided this right before the last election. News still trickles down to me via these threads, but I watch, literally, absolutely zero cable news, and I check CNN’s front page maybe once in a month. Everything I need to know will filter down somehow, and there is no sense for my mental health to surround myself with news. The news is there, pretty much, to make you angry and keep you watching. I don’t have time for that. I truly do not understand people who listen to news 24-7. And I really don’t get people listening to right-wing talk radio 24-7. Do they really just like being angry and finding reasons (real or not) to be angry? Seems like a poor way to live.
Whether or not they “like” it, they are addicted to it. Their mind is unhappy when not bathing in rage hormones. Drunks hate sobriety for the same reason. It hurts not to have alcohol rattling around in their synapses.
In a similar vein to Conspiracy Theories, they allow the listener to say “I’ve got this messy reality figured out. Here’s what’s really happening. I’m on the inside correct side of all this. Just like Limbaugh Hannity [whoever] told me!”
I also subscribe to the trickle down news protocol lol.
Somehow I get the basics but I cannot bathe myself in rage and expect to be sane.
I’ll survive somehow no matter what happens.
Or not.
I don’t engage in any of those threads. Mainly because I don’t care who gets elected POTUS. And the reason is that I don’t like any of them (Biden, Trump, Harris, etc.).
I think you’ve nailed it here. It is an addiction, and like any addiction, it can be conquered.
Don’t be starting with that in this thread, please.
I’m the same as most others in this thread.
For people who would like to do more than just voting or giving money, you can write (by hand) postcards to Dem voters in swing states:
Help write postcards to voters in 11 key states! We’ll mail you free postcards, voter lists and instructions with proven message options. You’ll provide the stamps and mail the postcards to voters in October.
My wife, who is much more anxious about the election than I am (and I’m plenty anxious) has volunteered to write 500 cards by October. She started a while ago and does five every weekday and ten on weekend days, and is now up to 175.
I would do it too, but I have terrible handwriting. She’s been a teacher for 42 years, so hers is great. But if my anxiety goes up much more, I may do some anyway, hand cramps be damned.
We did that in the last cycle and we’ve done some in this cycle as well. The wife writes them, I address and stamp them.
I just signed up.