Don’t let your head explode
My brain sometimes feels like it’s about to explode.
Mostly this has to do with my distress at the state of the world and my ever-present naïve wonderment at the greed and cruelty of so much—or so it seems—of humanity. Images of the genocide of the Palestinian people mix with my bafflement at how my country continues to ship arms to the nation perpetrating the genocide. Images of the war in Ukraine, whence friends of mine had to flee when Russia invaded and where sirens and mortars are now part of daily life. Images of the Republican party in the United States, run by a narcissistic idiot and engaged in dangerous performative culture wars rather than governing. Images of gangs in Haiti letting loose seemingly random violence on a terrified civilian population. Images of Sudan… of the Sahel… of the Democratic Republic of Congo… of Yemen… of Myanmar…
Anyone’s head would explode.
I am a woman in late middle age with an extremely modest income, so there are limits in how I can personally do anything about any of it. I am not complaining for my own self—I am privileged beyond words in that I can watch these conflicts from afar and in safety; I’m not underestimating that. But not having agency over any of it takes its toll.
It’s caused me recently to examine how and where I spend my time and energy, and one could argue that I expend both frivolously. I read a lot of novels, and not all of them are serious or edifying. I write mystery fiction in which the world is ultimately fair and justice triumphs in the end—as realistic as a fairytale. And while none of that is bad, it’s also not helping the world.
And then I had a conversation with the actor Jared Hagen, and I shared my concerns with him; we’re both, after all, in the same general business of storytelling.
“Are you doing anything constructive?” he asked me. Of course I am: I write postcards for various organizations; I donate every penny I can afford to important political races; I support nonprofts; I try to counter the media lies that poison people’s minds. But it’s not exactly a fulltime job.
“Escapism is important,” Jared said. “We couldn’t tolerate being in the fight all the time—we’d burn out. What we do is give people space to step back, to recharge, to feel something good. And that’s the only way they can go back out there and do something good. It can’t happen without us.”
And perhaps that’s why my head doesn’t actually explode. Because I spend an evening here and there at the theater. Because I read and write stories that have reassuring endings. Because I find times to laugh.
We need to keep fighting evil and cruelty and greed. We need to keep building a world where there is no genocide, no climate crisis, no war. We need to each of us figure out the best way we can each individually do that…
… and include the things that nourish us, so our heads don’t—quite—explode.
