That Queasy Feeling

How to transcend both denial and distraction when the world seems to be coming apart

Fires near Sheffield, today. Photo by Christopher Furlong, Getty Images.

You know that moment when you realize you’re seriously sick, or that your relationship is going to end, or you’ve lost your job, or you realize that you’re about to crash the car? It’s not panic, so much as the queasiness of realization. Like when you see the police lights in the rearview mirror. Ugh.

I feel like we are experiencing a collective queasiness right now. The record temperatures in Europe, drought conditions in the US, wanton invasion of Ukraine, rise of authoritarianism, rollback of women’s rights, spread of new diseases, and more, all make it hard to move through life in a normal way.

How does one do forward-looking things, like take a new job, get married, start a new major project, paint a nursery for a yet-to-be-born child, or even plan a trip to the beach when they don’t have any sense of certainty about the future?

One way to move forward is to ignore or deny. We have all learned to ignore, at least for a few moments at a time. That’s why we have TV and Netflix, sports and gossip. After half an hour of yoga, I am more focused on the depth of my chateranga than that of the rising oceans. That’s fine, I suppose, as long at it’s temporary. A way of recharging so that I can get back to work.

Denial is a little more tricky, but I see the appeal. Just conclude that all of these alerts are more the product of an overarching system of control than they are true emergencies. “They” want us to remain in a state of panic so that we surrender our agency to the government. The media, working in concert with leftists, are magnifying the extent of our problems in order to seize our assets, guns, and nervous systems. It may sound a little scary on the surface, but it’s ultimately a comforting story. Nothing is actually wrong; it’s all just propaganda. If we stop listening to the democrats and the globalists, we can carry on just fine.

If we’re going to stand any chance of drawing denialists out of their delusion, and ignorers away from their distractions, we’re going to have to offer them something better than a…