Trump's Crude Sexual Attack of Harris & 6 High School Football Players Have Died in the Past Few Weeks
Trump's Crude Sexual Attack of Harris & 6 High School Football Players Have Died in the Past Few Weeks
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Stress and anxiety are an inevitable part of life. But it shouldn’t control us.
Trump Reposts Crude Sexual Comment About Harris During Truth Social Meltdown: Women who support Trump are also promoting dark misogyny.
Never take health tips from world’s oldest people, say scientists: We aren’t looking for tips, we’re trying to justify bad behavior.
Many Older People Maintain and Even Gain Cognitive Skills: This may not affect pop culture’s preference for stereotypes of the elderly. But it will make us see ourselves better.
Kareem’s Video Break: The return of one of my favorite videos: The dance-off between rival superhero families from The Umbrella Academy.
Six high school football players have died in recent weeks. It’s time to take action: What will it take for us to stop putting our kids in unnecessary danger?
New process vaporizes plastic bags and bottles, yielding gases to make new, recycled plastics: One of the most hopeful stories about the environment.
What I’m Watching—TV: Bad Monkey and the final season of The Umbrella Academy are lots of fun. Highly recommend.
David Gates Sings “Goodbye Girl”: This lovely theme song from the movie of the same name is a great showcase for the former lead singer of Bread.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
Mattie sat at the table, obsessing, orbiting around herself. She was sick of her worried, hostile mind. It would have killed her long before, she felt, if it hadn’t needed the transportation.
Anne Lamott, from her novel Blue Shoe
How can you not love this witty quote about stress and anxiety?
At the same time, we must acknowledge the significant increase in reported stress in this country: 37% of adults say they cannot do anything when stressed. A 2021 Gallup poll found that 41% of adults in 122 countries experience “a lot of stress.” Although the number of stressed people keeps rising, it’s unclear whether that’s because more people are stressed than previously, or because it’s become more acceptable to admit it.
Stress is an invisible disease that festers like worms moving through the body just under the skin. Much of it comes from a lack of security involving jobs, relationships, and our personal safety. The feeling that we are powerless to meaningfully affect those triggers only increases our stress. This is the helpless dread that once inspired the creation of gods and sacrifices to have some control.
Another source of stress is the anxiety that comes with the thousand decisions we must make every day, many of them without any assurance that it’s the right decision. That’s because humans rarely have enough information to be sure of our decisions. Should we quit our job and take another one? Should we get out of a souring relationship or try to make it better? Should we go to this college or that one? It’s so tempting to just pull the covers over your head and hope it all passes.
But it doesn’t pass. All we can do is muster on by making pros and cons lists, doing our research, and getting advice from those we trust then make decisions based on the information we’ve gathered. Stress is the inevitable and relentless by-product of conflict, whether it’s the external conflict of dealing with the demands of daily life, or the internal conflicts of our reactions to those conflicts. It will come.
Adopting techniques to cope with stress has been the Holy Grail since we first gained consciousness. Some use meditation, chanting, religion, candles, exercise, drugs, TV, poetry, music, art, or shopping. I’ve indulged in most of those at some point. But the most effective stress reliever is to insert myself among my family and friends. To interact with them, to hear their concerns, to share their joys. Suddenly, my own stress is put into a larger perspective and it begins to melt away.
This makes me think of another quote: “A problem shared is a problem halved. A joy shared is a joy doubled.” Either way, sharing is the key to less stress and more joy.
2024 Election Bites
Sometimes when I’m commenting on this election, I feel like an archeologist who’s dug up ancient documents about a primitive civilization from thousands of years ago with leaders who did and said things that modern rational people would find so horrific as to be unbelievable. I find it unbelievable and I’m watching it all unfold.