I've also finished What the Body Remembers, which was a powerful book, but so unrelentingly bleak in its portrayal of male/female dynamics that it almost made me pick a fight with Kevin, just for being a man. Sometimes I can't take reading about incredibly sexist societies because it just scares me; I start feeling like it wasn't so long ago that women's choices were so horribly limited, and with the way America is going lately, it might not be so long until we're right back there again. Kevin says that even if Roe vs. Wade does get overturned, that doesn't mean abortion is going to become illegal again; the blue states will almost certainly keep it legal. But that just makes me think of poor women deep in the midst of red states who will face jail time for illegal abortions, and it terrifies me.
The book also spends many pages detailing the massacres and barbarity of India/Pakistan's Partition; well-written, but it made me feel sick.
This is part of why I don't regularly read the news; I'm too susceptible to despair at the stupidity of people, the ways we succumb to our mindless biological imperatives over and over again. Okay, I'm jumbling all kinds of things together here, I know, it's just all hard to take sometimes. I call it a David frame of mind; he seems to think this way about society most of the time, focused on the negatives. I don't know how he bears it. Normally I'm much more of an optimist, more aware of and concentrated on small incremental bits of social progress.
Maybe going back to the Kingsolver essays will help; she dwells on massive horrible things going wrong too, from an environmental or social violence perspective, but at least she offers some small ways to work against the problems.
Not that it will help, but you aren’t alone in your feelings. I know I need to keep up with current events, but somedays it seems overwhelmingly negative and while I know there are things that can be done, it’s difficult to know where to start.
I should also say that I’ve been enjoying your site, your comments, and your resource links, for a very long time, but never really let you know. So here it is, hopefully a “good” email; that what you have to say and how you say it is very much appreciated.
It does help. Misery loves company, after all… 🙂
And it’s definitely good to hear that people are getting something worthwhile out of all the stuff I do. Sometimes it all feels so random and pointless, and I think I should ditch it all and go back to med school after all, do something clearly worthwhile with my life…
When the news is too much for me, this is one of the places that I turn.