Archives for posts with tag: propaganda

An Admission of Ignorance

November 9, 2025 //
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I arrived at the trailhead for my morning walk at daybreak. I didn’t expect a colorful sunrise, given the time of year, and the recent weather generally, but I also slept in this morning, which changed my timing. (Which has nothing to do with whether there would be a colorful sunrise, only the likelihood of seeing it.)

Mt Hood in the distance.

I parked, grateful for the quiet morning and the pleasant drive. Grateful for the simple good life I am fortunate to enjoy with my Traveling Partner. My mind wanders to my colleagues in the Philippines. They’ve had a rough year, multiple super typhoons, earthquakes, and even volcanoes erupting. I silently wish them well, hoping they are safe from harm, and reminding myself to check on them.

I set off down the trail, content to walk with my thoughts over unmeasured miles. I’ll get there when I get there, wherever “there” turns out to be.

Behind me, the sun rises.

I get to my halfway point, feeling light-hearted and calm, unbothered by the troubles of the world for the moment. Feels good. I haven’t looked at the news today, other than the weather. Weather reports are to news what cookbooks are to literature; generally very neutral, fact-based, and practical. I’d very much like it if all of the news were handled in a similarly practical factual way, but since that is not the situation in the year 2025, I have been making a point of not looking at that crap until later in the day, if at all.

…And you can’t make me 😂 …

How many times can I look at repeats of the same aggravating, outrage-stoking, needlessly provocative AI slop or partisan gaslighting without becoming (understandably) distressed or depressed? No thanks. I’ll accept a measure of predictable uncertainty and ignorance of world events in the moment. The most important details will still reach me, filtered through work channels or conversations with friends, or shared to me by my Traveling Partner, who understands better than anyone besides my therapist the effect too much of such things can have on me.

Are you old enough to remember adults in your life reading the newspaper? I’m talking about the folded paper newspaper that may have been delivered with a thump right to the doorstep each morning or maybe just on Sunday… Growing up, for me, that was my father and my grandfathers. (My recollection is that my mother and grandmothers were more inclined to read magazines and books.)

The pace of knowledge and news seemed slower before the rise of cable news, and later the Internet, and the words in each article, edition, or volume seemed more carefully thought out. Catching up on world events weekly wasn’t ridiculous – and it certainly seemed enough to fuel an entire week of conversation.

…Why do you need immediate real-time news 24/7, anyway…?

During my own lifetime, the pace of news delivery has accelerated beyond the point of new news being available to report at all, creating an opportunity for bullshit repeats, “clickbait”, sponsored content, and AI slop to thrive. That’s not good news for human thought. I think it began with the evening news on television (so convenient!), and quickly worsened with the coming of cable news channels. If it were all high quality, skillfully researched, factual, and with clearly stated agendas, biases, and the special interest groups backing it openly identified, the news might be a real value, and a useful resource. I don’t think it measures up to that standard, presently. I think it is reasonable to doubt the truth of most of what we see shoved at us as “news” these days. That’s definitely true of the laughably dishonest missives coming from the White House directly. It’s almost certain someone has a stake in controlling what we think as a population, no matter where we get our news. It makes sense to think critically about what we read, hear, and see that is presented as the news.

So…yeah. I guess I’m 100% okay with a measure of “ignorance” of the sort that results from carefully vetting news sources and just catching up once in awhile, or based strictly on work relevant topics and local news each week. I’m not okay with letting advertisers dominate my consciousness or cognitive processes, or letting notifications regulate my attention. I’ve been switching my phone to “do not disturb” more often (a lot), and carefully managing casual access to my attention. So far these steps have been very freeing in practical terms, and with some expectation setting, don’t seem to have created any great inconvenience for people who need to reach me. Helpful.

I sit watching the new day unfold, thinking my own thoughts. Delightful. I take time to meditate. To breathe. To be. I listen to huge flocks of geese passing overhead, and traffic whoosh past on the highway beyond the marsh. I breathe, exhale, and relax, and fill my attention with here, now. It’s lovely. On the pond’s edge, opposite where I am perched on this fence rail, nutria go about the business of being nutria. A youngster eyes me curiously and begins to makes it’s way nearer to me. The mother looks up, attentive, and some sound I don’t hear, or movement I don’t see, calls the youngster back to its mother. A small brown bird scratches in the leaf litter at the side of the trail. None of this is “news”, and all of it is more relevant to this moment of being, for me, as an individual.

I think of things my beloved Traveling Partner has said recently, about what is within our control, and how he seeks to manage stress through selective attention, relevance, and perspective. He’s right, too, and these are also things that have been emphasized in therapy over the years. Trying to control what we don’t have control over, and trying to fix things outside the scope of what we can directly act upon drives a lot of needless stress. Hell, even trying to have an opinion about something we just don’t actually know anything about adds to our stress! It can be a very stressful experience, this human experience. It is true that most of our suffering and stress are self-imposed, too, making it both “easy” to resolve, and also quite difficult.

(I didn’t say I had this solved, I’m just thinking about it.)

I sigh quietly, still managing to startle a chipmunk I hadn’t seen approach. I laugh merrily to see her dart away speedily, tail up. I smile toward the sky as I get to my feet to begin again. It’s a new day.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Using Your Words

September 9, 2025 //
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I woke up with a thing stuck in my head. Not an actual object physically lodged in my skull, just a thought lingering in the background as though it had been the topic of conversation, or the content of a dream I had. It happens to also be the wallpaper of my laptop, and a reminder that whether – and how – we use our words really matters. For human primates, spoken language is our primary form of direct communication. Written language follows pretty closely, I suppose, and language is a powerful tool that can bring us closer – or drive us apart. It can reveal profound truths, or build terrible lies. It can soothe hurts and cause real harm, too. The thing stuck in my head as I woke, though? It was this:

Borrowed from a post by Kyle Hill, a YouTube content creator.

Words matter. Meaning matters. Using words to directly communicate our experience or needs to each other matters. It’s definitely more efficient (and generally more clear) than less direct forms of communication, when used skillfully, with a bit of care. Of course, like any sort of “magic”, it can be turned to evil purposes, and be used for gaslighting, manipulation, deceit, misdirection, or to directly do injury (or persuade others to do injuries to one another).

I drove up the highway still thinking about words, language, and communication, and how difficult something that seems so simple at first glance can really be. We live in challenging times, and communication is both the cause of some of our difficulties as a species (and society), and also the solution. Weird, right? Hell, we can’t even be certain of sharing the same “dictionary”, as individuals; the nuances in how we each understand a particular word can vary our understanding so much as to be not at all related, undermining our ability to understand each other, and even limiting our ability to recognize that we have not understood.

Here’s an example. When you use a word like “liberal” or “conservative” what do you actually mean by that? Is it straightforward? Is it is a common and broadly shared definition of the term? (What makes you so sure of that?) When you use it, are you actually clearly communicating an idea – or is it “coded language” carrying more (or other) meaning than the definition that will be found in a published dictionary? Could you be more clear? Are you being less clear by intention? Is it actually “your word” expressing your own thoughts, or are you repeating someone else’s talking point, parroting a phrase or slogan, conveying a message that is not truly your own?

…Do you even know what you’re really talking about?…

It’s hard to go wrong with good basics…

My thoughts bring me back to The Four Agreements. Not my first walk down that path, either. This peculiar little volume has some powerful ideas in it. These ideas are framed in a spiritual sort of context that isn’t a good fit for everyone’s thinking (including mine), but the basic messages being communicated are profound, and worthy of consideration. One of these “agreements” is the recommendation to “be impeccable” with our words. The book makes it clear that what is meant is to be clear, accurate, truthful, and also kind, compassionate, considerate, gentle, and aware of the potential for lasting consequences when we speak to each other. Communicating well takes practice, and maybe a lot of that, quite probably “forever”. Totally worth it, though. Skillful communication is a healing thing that brings people together, when used to connect and share and build.

Why am I even on about this, this morning? No idea. I woke up with a meme in my head. lol I woke up to some sort of interrupted internal discussion of the power of words and how we use them. I drove to the more distant co-work space I sometimes work from, still thinking about words, language, and communication (and my own commonplace difficulties with good communication). I hadn’t yet exchanged words with another human being at all. I’m thinking about it even now.

My Traveling Partner pings me a greeting in the form of a cute “sticker”, and shares some words about a quality of life improvement project he’s working on – improvements to our media library, and how it is organized – and I reply. Successful communication. How do I define that success? We understand each other, and feel loved. Win. I glance down at the wee tray my Traveling Partner made to hold my “regular” glasses when I have my computer glasses on, and feel wrapped in love. Another form of communication, not in words, but in actions. Those matter, too.

What love looks like – sometimes.

I smile to myself, and sit with my thoughts in the quiet of the office. I’m grateful for the solitude, the quiet morning, my Traveling Partner’s love, a job that pays the bills (or will, once the paychecks start coming), a pleasant little home, and the ability to use words and language. Powerful stuff. I think about all the books I have yet to read, and the poetry I have yet to write. I think about delightful compliments I have been offered, and useful feedback I’ve been given that I have used to grow and become more the woman I most want to be. I contemplate the dark power of sarcasm, insults, and angry words, and the lasting damage these can do. I think about promises given, promises broken, and how much it matters to keep our word. I think about the way unexpected kind words can lift us up from difficult moments. I think about how sharing our experiences with each other through story telling and anecdotes can teach, entertain, or bring us together. Words are powerful indeed.

I sip my coffee and for a moment, I deeply miss my Dear Friend, with whom I might have shared these thoughts, and further discussion. Words connected us over great distances and many years.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I begin the day with words, and I’ll likely end it with words, too. I take a few minutes to meditate, letting the words fall away for a time, just being, and breathing. Now, it’s time to begin again. I glance at the clock, and prepare for the work day ahead. I remind myself to choose my words with care – because words matter.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

What Are You Doing About It?

January 7, 2017 //
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Some mornings, particularly on weekends, I sip my coffee and catch up on the news of the world and my Facebook feed before I settle down to write. On those mornings, I also fight “taking the bait” and I do battle with invisible forces hoping to leverage the power of outrage to get my attention, and others hoping to get their hands on whatever loose change may be laying about. I’m getting better at maintaining some balance in the face of emotional triggers of all sorts as I scroll through images and words.

The need to build more resistance to emotional manipulation, for me, is pretty serious. My injury and my PTSD tend to result in a level of emotionality generally (the TBI) and volatility (the PTSD) that can make me very susceptible to emotional manipulation, emotionally evocative language and images, and it has been difficult to manage over the years. If I’m being honest, I can’t say that I “managed” it all all, with any skill or noticeable success until I started practicing mindfulness – and omg, do I ever need practice, like, all the time, every day. So human. I learned a lot about how far I’ve come, during this past election year, and I also learned a lot about how far I’ve yet to go. So… I keep practicing. I keep finding my way along life’s journey, one step at a time. The news thing is tricky; I love to read, I consume content at a high rate, I love language… and I’m a highly emotional reasoning being. I needed something helpful to rely on…

I ask myself questions that seem to help sort it all out (for me).

  1. Does this matter more to me than it did when I read the last article about this? If so, am I merely having an expected reaction to repetition?
  2. Can I verify it is 100% utterly legit, fact-checked, references cited, real no bullshit data or information?
  3. Who profits from this? (…and what does that say about the content?)
  4. Is the content original? (If it’s creator content reshared/reposted, is the creator credited?)
  5. What is my purpose in sharing this? Is it necessary?
  6. What am I going to do about it? (If this is action-worthy at all, why not just take action and share that in my own words?)

I think, generally, most of my friends also read the news – no need for me to share it to ensure they hear the latest from the same mainstream sources most of us are reading. It’s redundant – which means it is repetitive, which results in higher believability whether it has a shred of truth or not. Not helpful. If I’m angry about it – do I actually want to share that experience?  If I feel moved to share content solely on the basis of seeking “solidarity”, sharing the experience of being outraged or angry, or looking for community… wouldn’t it make so much more sense to reach out to friends directly, human being to human being, get together over a coffee, or hang out together, and really talk, really share? Sure, we’re all in this together… but using Facebook to reprogram our culture seems to be taking us all to some very strange and fairly ugly places.

I’ve gotten sucked into Facebook time and again, and wasted hours of precious limited lifetime – not connecting with friends and deepening those relationships, either, just reading the news, reading memes, scrolling through duplications and repeats, and generally filling my consciousness with the cognitive equivalent of junk food. I’ve added to the noise, reposting articles that evoke an emotional reaction without closely examining why, or even whether the content is highly accurate, and unbiased. You know what it got me? What it got all of us? The 2016 election outcome. That event has really changed my thinking about what purpose Facebook serves in my experience – and what it can do, and how it affects my quality of life, generally, as an application – because that’s all it is. It’s an app. It’s up to me to use it well, and use it wisely, and be mindful of the results I see, and the consequences of my actions.

Facebook – another opportunity to be mindful. Who knew? 🙂

I’ll hop down off my soapbox. It’s a gray, cold, wintry Saturday morning. WordPress notes that it’s been 4 years here, sharing, practicing, walking my own mile. My coffee is done. The morning has begun. Thanks for being here.

Today is a good day to live life in real-time, with real people, in physical space. I think I’ll go do that. 🙂

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Fiction, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, War and News of War, weight loss secrets, winter, Words