Important Things

I unfollowed & unfriended another writer early this morning. From all her proclamations, she is a white, cis-het, conservative thinker pretty much identical to people that raised me and did my brain the most damage. She had a habit of starting a thread on Facebook with a question that sounded like a push poll from a McCain opposition survey. (You know the one: “Would you think any differently of John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”)

I too often leaped on board to debate with her, to correct her. Of course, that was a waste of energy which only stimulated my adrenaline and exposed me to more responses from her allies. These exchanges are just as addicting as humiliating, so I did myself a favor and cut off my access to her. It was not censoring an opposing viewpoint. It was removing a temptation to waste time. I went on to write a few dozen words on an important scene in my WIP which I had imagined while first outlining it.

I have a done a few important things in my life. That’s hard to remember after a two-year stretch of cancer and Covid-19 that had as its greatest achievement “not dying”. I even thought to make a list here, but eventually realized it would come off as both vain and revealing of too many secrets. Too many sentences in this short essay have begun with “I”.

In this crazy time, Warriors of Every Stripe, do the important things. Take care of yourselves. Take care of those others who can’t. Forgive their non-lethal trespasses. Avoid the plague, like the plague. When you have the time and inclination, create something, whether it’s an epic novel or a TikTok video or a new breed of sourdough. All that will leave a more lasting mark than an argument on Facebook.

Weirdmaste.