The other day when I was kind of spinning, I remembered this post.

About putting on your oxygen mask.

This item was posted on my other site on Sept 25/21. Feels like a really long time ago, doesn’t it?? So much has happened since then. Anyway, it sprang into my mind the other day when I felt like I was spinning, & I decided to re-post it here. I’ve put a different item up top (I just love that photo!!) & have added in a few potentially helpful memes & some music at the end.)

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Put on Your Oxygen Mask!

You know how at the beginning of an airline flight a flight attendant stands at the front of the cabin & explains that, if the masks drop down, you should put your own on before attempting to help anyone else?

Because we really can’t be of use to anyone else if we cannot breathe properly ourselves? Just “common sense” really.

I say, in these so-extraordinary times – these oh-so-unprecedented times in the history of our species (I don’t think this is an exaggeration, but you may have a different take on things), it’s very important to remember to put on our own “oxygen mask.”

In other words, we have to get a break from the constant onslaught of ceaseless Covid-related drama.

Because let’s face it, drama is exhausting!

Drama is not the only thing these days/daze that is endless & exhausting. Draining. Infuriating. Debilitating.

There is plenty else to wear us down. Throw us into despair, even.

Hence, the need for our personal “oxygen mask.”

So here’s my advice:

Take a Break!

• Turn off “the news.” (I personally pay NO attention whatsoever to mainstream media; I mean NONE. But that’s a different essay.)

• Leave your “devices” at home when you go out for a walk.

• Go out for a walk!

• Ignore your devices/email/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/whatever for a whole day (or even better, days!) at a time. After all, if World War III should happen to break out, someone will almost certainly let you know about it!

• Wash the dishes/don’t wash the dishes/do the laundry/don’t do the laundry (etc. etc.) when you get feeling exhausted/depleted/frazzled/at your wits’ end.

Do whatever will help you stay the most sane.

Within reason, of course.

Okay?

And that might very well be a walk or bike ride or conversation with a friend instead of the damn dishes. Or whatever.

Among other things going on these days, I’ve been noticing:

People driving even more like idiots than ever. Who would even have thought this possible?? Either suicidally/homicidally fast and dangerously – both on city streets and on the highways (I’ve personally witnessed extreme examples of both). Or like a frail, half-blind little old gentleman who’s gotta be about 125 & ought to have given up his driver’s licence decades ago. OMG. Enough to make a person crazy! (Very grateful I do not have to drive very much!)

AND, if that weren’t enough, there is construction EVERYwhere. I mean, but EVERYWHERE. Geez. WTH is up with that??

A lot of people seem angrier than usual. (Duh, eh?) One hears a lot more shouting & (very) loud fights among the folks in one’s apartment complex than one ever used to in days of yore...

Also, everybody seems to be EXHAUSTED. Sleep deprivation appears to be at positively epidemic levels. (I hear magnesium can help with this.)

Lies/liars/lying also appear to be pretty much epidemic in these, The Days of the Great Covid Drama. Holy Bullshit Overload, Batman!? (Plenty more could be said on this topic, of course, but I’m doing my best to be pretty concise here.)

It seems as though there are new “Berlin Walls” springing up everywhere we turn these days! Both within & outside our very own families. Among acquaintances/colleagues/former colleagues. Neighbours ... you know ... whomever. (Also, some of us are being very sensible and NOT erecting Berlin Walls. This is eminently possible, actually! We need not all believe all the very same things, choose the very same narratives, have the very same reactions to the world-changing events taking place all around us. Remember the old phrase “Live and let live?” It’s a timely time to recall it now, I think.)

The “vaxxed” (some of them; not all) are dumping on/afraid of the unvaxxed, or so I gather (a little birdie tells me the mainstream media are pretty hard at work fuelling this), & the un-vaxxed are madly wondering when it became outlier or weird behaviour to simply decide what we’re prepared to have injected into our very own bodies. Especially after doing considerable amounts of deep, careful, time-consuming research. (Did I already say WTF?)

Many people appear to be terrified – really unaccountably, wildly, uncontrollably so – as though we were all witnessing literal Covid-felled bodies piling up in the streets ... and I don’t know about you, but I have certainly not witnessed anything even remotely like that! I don’t personally know a single person who has died (been hospitalized, even) from Covid illness, but I have heard of friends or relatives of friends who’ve died post-vaccination. And I’ve been paying attention to data from the U.S. VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System), which is pretty darn sobering, to put it very mildly indeed (by all means, DO check this out for yourself). The over-the-top terror over Covid incidence & deaths appears to emanate directly from the mainstream media. Curious, isn’t it? (Are you curious?)

A great many people appear to be behaving quite irrationally. (Do I need to point out that this is a very major understatement? I am trying to be very polite and understated here. No drama... 🙂 )

Editor’s Note: this can apparently occur when 18 months of (very intense) fear-mongering have saturated the air waves, sound waves, people’s minds, etc. Those who listen to MSM are apparently positively DROWNING in it. Fear porn, I mean. Holy overdosing on fear already. Lordy...

A lot of people are behaving kind of like, well, hmmmmmmm, how shall I say it? Let’s just call it … a bit DUMB, okay? Perhaps like overly naive, innocent, guileless (easy to herd) children. Think Little Red Riding Hood & the Big Bad Wolf, maybe. Only in this current-day context, cute little innocent girl does not spot the BBW for who he really is until it’s too late. Oops – BIG oops! Gobble, gobble, gobble.

People seem increasingly to be losing their shit. As it were. (see Ed. Note above.)

So.

Please Take A Break from all the madness.

Put on your oxygen mask!

• Read a novel

• Take a walk

• Go for a swim/paddle/kayak/sail/surf/long bike ride

• Write in a journal

• Gaze at trees (even just a tree), or a lake or river or SOME body of water ... however small. (Ravines are pretty cool!)

• Get some solitude and silence (the human soul needs these things. I have this on pretty good authority, okay?)

• Lay aside all the fear & the fear-mongering. Just. Tune. It. Out.

At least for a while...

A steady diet of that kind of drama is pretty much guaranteed to both leave you exhausted and burn out your rational faculties. I’m pretty sure of it. It will blow your mental circuits. Which you really kinda need to keep in good working order.

‘cos we all need to be able to THINK RATIONALLY ... right??

PLEASE.

Put on your oxygen mask.

I mean it.

J.

p.s. I think maybe we need to put some effort into continuing to be human beings who still behave like human beings … you know? Not simply gullible consumers of media manipulation tactics. As I like to say sometimes, sound bites are not science. Let’s be really CURIOUS about all aspects of what’s going on around us. Question EVERYthing!!

Many great Orwell quotations here.