I’ve been trying to figure out how best to handle the pain coming from Trump’s White House. I’ve watched the wide-ranging injuries he is inflicting on America and the world, making me and so many others more miserable each week.
This is actually a good moment for me to weigh alternative approaches to managing pain. Yesterday I had the third and final session of outpatient surgery called Cervical Radiofrequency Ablation to destroy a nerve in my neck and quiet my long-time arthritis.
This morning I woke up pain-free!
I’ve spent the week working on an analogy for this newsletter, comparing the various ways of treating physical pain - by using physical therapy, pain medicine, and finally the nerve block I had yesterday - against the ways I’ve been trying to deal with the daily pain which the news produces - by using hope, resolve, protest gatherings, angry screeds, or maybe a little acceptance or even tuning out.
I reached two conclusions.
For the growing damage to my neck, choosing not to keep trying to cure the pain but instead to obscure it is effective and humane.
For the growing damage to our environment, our democracy, and our grandchildren’s future, blocking the pain is neither effective nor humane. Tuning out will not help me or anyone.
Starting today, I hope my concentration improves in daily life. I also hope that, as I write ClimateDog, I can focus better. Especially on analogies.
Glad your "pain in the neck" is better! I've given up morning news. I'm finding I'm less depressed than I was during Trump 1.0. There are plenty of news sources during the rest of the day, and of course PBS evening news.
Happy to hear that the neck treatment worked and hope you contined to be neck pain free so you can work on the other pains!