1. I’ve always had a good filter. Rarely do events in the news affect me emotionally, even when they involve things I care deeply about.
2. I think we’re born with certain temperaments and mine is that my baseline is a mildly positive affect. It doesn’t take much to satisfy me and I generally am, so whenever something bad happens I return to equilibrium quickly.
3. I generally enjoy life and have been relatively fortunate to have been spared major illness, debilitating financial worry, deaths of close friends or family at a young age, or various other issues that make many people’s lives challenging.
4. I run year-round, in all weather, 6-7 days per week (Monday was the first day I didn’t run in a couple months). I train pretty hard and after 12 miles in the sleet or a brutal day on the track, everything abstract feels a little less real. Also if you push yourself hard enough, you’re pathetically grateful for basic food and shelter and it’s really hard for you to get worked up over a dumb meme that someone tweeted out.
5. Finally, I may be relatively young (although I’m getting close to an age where I doubt that statement applies anymore), but I have some historical perspective be. America has been through worse. There are things I profoundly dislike about our current moment, but you have to take the bad with the good. This too will pass. At times in 2024 especially I was dispirited and I’m sure I will be again, but America might come out of this mess still the strongest country in the world by far if only because nobody else (really, not even China) has a chance at displacing us.
1. I’ve always had a good filter. Rarely do events in the news affect me emotionally, even when they involve things I care deeply about.
2. I think we’re born with certain temperaments and mine is that my baseline is a mildly positive affect. It doesn’t take much to satisfy me and I generally am, so whenever something bad happens I return to equilibrium quickly.
3. I generally enjoy life and have been relatively fortunate to have been spared major illness, debilitating financial worry, deaths of close friends or family at a young age, or various other issues that make many people’s lives challenging.
4. I run year-round, in all weather, 6-7 days per week (Monday was the first day I didn’t run in a couple months). I train pretty hard and after 12 miles in the sleet or a brutal day on the track, everything abstract feels a little less real. Also if you push yourself hard enough, you’re pathetically grateful for basic food and shelter and it’s really hard for you to get worked up over a dumb meme that someone tweeted out.
5. Finally, I may be relatively young (although I’m getting close to an age where I doubt that statement applies anymore), but I have some historical perspective be. America has been through worse. There are things I profoundly dislike about our current moment, but you have to take the bad with the good. This too will pass. At times in 2024 especially I was dispirited and I’m sure I will be again, but America might come out of this mess still the strongest country in the world by far if only because nobody else (really, not even China) has a chance at displacing us.