Dealin’ With Stressful Stuff on the Internet

                

The internet is pretty much a constant source of stress if you allow it to be. News comes non-stop, and there’s always somewhere in the world that you can find something distressing. Fear is something that attracts attention, and news agencies know and use this. Plus, in the ever increasing blogosphere, there’s usually some way to find out that your reaction to any news item is wrong and you should feel bad about it. I don’t really deal with this very well. I kind of just keep absorbing different news things and trying to find out ~the right answer~, which is honestly impossible.

                I know lots of people who do the opposite. Plenty of people I talk to just don’t want to deal with that on a day to day basis, and the structure of the modern internet makes it easy to not have it shoved in your face.

                I don’t really know what my responsibility as a human being is. I have this general desire to do good, but am worried that my attempts to do so end up making things worse, like Rocco (Rocco and His Brothers, Visconti, 1960). There is a naivete that comes from my privileged upbringing that probably leaves me thinking things are more easily fixed than they actually are. The industrial work I am doing and the people at my work place both nudge me towards less faith in government, but I find it difficult to imagine another way to consistently support fairness. There is also the “nearest and dearest dilemma”, really the optimal way for me to support the best people would be to abandon all of my care for those around me/myself and make sure my money/labour did the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Even on a less extreme level, it’s hard to tell what the balance between trying to live a fulfilling life and not contributing to oppression is. And then there’s always the reminder at the top of the page.

                I worry about this stuff a lot, and I don’t know if it actually results in me acting better for the world. I hope that the thinking itself leads to changes that I don’t even notice happening. Maybe it all doesn’t matter, thanks to the message of the cute doggies at the top of this page. But falling into nihilism is definitely worse, and so I will keep bashing my head against the idea of improving myself and helping the world around me, and hope that eventually I’ll come out of it as a good and happy human being.