Data Collection

4

It’s been 4 years or so since I’ve stopped reading the news. I’ve ostriched. Stopped eating social bread. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad. It’s ignorant for sure.

I used to pride myself on following the news. Even my cats, left alone, were truly never alone. Comforted by the voices of Terry Gross and Ira Glass they’d lounge and update me on everything I missed. The right kind of news, punctuated by meows and soft purrs. The only swipes and viciousness, are the deserved kind. You’ve scratched one too many times. Violated a social code the Romans never mentioned.

Ever since undergrad, I’ve listened or read the news. On the way to work, sitting on the couch. Post-hoc, I’m educated; intelligentsia. I have a public opinion and I’ve shaped it.

I changed.

By events horrific. I was done. Whether it was then or the preceding days. I wait for geysers to erupt now. You’re 3 degrees from Paul Erdős, 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon, 1 degree from an education. We’re all less than a degree from climate obliteration. No matter what, the carnival barkers will get you.

4 years prior, I was examining millimeter differences. I don’t even like millimeter projectiles. My gun safe, a filing cabinet. My armory, NERFed. The thought of your neighbors dragging you out of your home to beat you to death is not.

Because:

    What

        Evidence

            Do

                You

                        Need

                            :that people can be convinced of terrible things.

Because:

    It could never happen here

Those aren’t conclusions. They’re facts. The terrible things people can do are a fact of life if you’re not part of the majority. For some of us, it’s solid state, bonded to our atoms. For most of us, it’s something you graduate in. A part of your childhood education. Red warnings and cautions. By the time a canary is dead you might be as well. Buried in a pet cemetery considered honorific.

4 years next, I’ll be doing the same. Not avoiding. Waiting for eruptions. Suspicious of what matters. 3 degrees involved in the community, building, becoming:

Vonnegut Xavier

Because:

    What else are you going to do?

Resources:

Notes: