Flailing, Drowning

Just trying to put these thoughts down

Readers who have been here a while may recall my first post of 2025, Thinking Again, where I quoted (with emphasis added) this excerpt from Rod Dreher’s Living In Wonder:

Our brains were not made to function with internet technology, it renders the task of understanding what we perceive much more difficult. Writes Carr, “It takes patience and concentration to evaluate new information—to gauge its accuracy, to weigh its relevance and work, to put it into context—and the internet, by design, subverts patience and concentration. When the brain is overloaded by stimuli, as it usually is when we’re peering into a network-connected computer screen, attention splinters, thinking becomes superficial, and memory suffers. We become less reflective and more impulsive. Far from enhancing human intelligence . . . the internet degrades it.”

It’s not just the internet but the ubiquitous way most of us access it: through the smartphone. Neuroscientists have found that the constant bombardment of information coming through the black-mirrored devices blitzes the prefrontal cortex, where most of our reasoning, self-control, problem-solving, and ability to plan takes place. The brain’s overwhelmed frontal lobes wind down higher-order cognition and defer to its emotional centers, which spark a cascade of stress and pleasure hormones.

The good news for me is that I gave up my smartphone for Lent, which is to say: I stopped using it, other than for texting with family and friends. My initial idea was to restrict myself to direct communications only, but I ended up foregoing use of even the email apps. And, I so enjoyed the freedom from it. Loved breaking the habit of constantly checking my phone and keeping it near me, reflexively opening it for no clear purpose other than because I reflexively picked it up.

I’m not going back. I might even get a “dumb” phone.

The bad news is that I spent way more time—and I mean WAY more time—on my laptop. That’s because I didn’t disconnect from the internet for Lent. I just abstained from using my phone to make the connection. So, boy howdy, did that bring home to me just how much of every day I spend online. Nothing like lugging around a laptop to discover in real world terms how many minutes I lose in distractions from the real world. To say nothing of the present moment. The jarring inconvenience of it was a big, embarrassing wakeup call.

In addition to all that, though, I am feeling so done—So. Done.—with the cacophony of current events. The news these days is an unending full-blast firehose of conflict and outrage. It feels like every day—even on weekends!—it’s a new controversy, a new pearl-clutching catastrophe, one after another after another after another, ad infinitum. The unrelenting flow is deluging my mind.

Okay, if I’m being totally honest, my inner information junkie is reveling in it—diving in, swimming in circles, exploring the depths, having a ball. (blush)

But the rest of me . . . my steadier self, the part of me that seeks equilibrium and clarity and insight, the part I want to nourish and grow . . . is gasping, flailing. Drowning.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I feel like I can barely think.

For sure I can barely write.

This is literally my third attempt—fresh draft number three—just trying to put these thoughts down. And it’s not because I can’t think of the words. It’s because too many come to mind. It’s a frickin’ flood. So much that my train of thought wanders, circles, divides, and splinters . . . until the energy peters out. I’d love to have the brain of so many people I subscribe to on Substack who have the ability to write not only tightly, coherently, and compellingly on their chosen topic, controversy, or idea, but often. They publish regularly. Weekly. Even daily. How do they do that?

I think my writer’s mind was not made for the age of algorithms, where frequency matters so much to visibility and success. I’m one of those plodding thinkers who needs more time, more space to ponder and rethink, to write and revise. I’d do better as an old school essayist where the aim was carefully crafted long form exposition (notice I did not say “content”—a digital-age term if ever there was one).

Which all has me thinking that perhaps I need to give myself permission to stop trying to publish on a bi-weekly schedule, stop focusing on political topics for the sake of their popularity, simply write if and when I have something I want to say. I think I need to give myself time to find topics I can find the words for, and stop trying to find my balance in the blast of the firehose flooding our world with daily drama and outrage. I can just step out of the way, turn down the volume, even tune out the noise.

Hear myself think again.

It’s such an appealing, relieving idea. Like a weight being lifted . . .

My only real hesitancy is disappointing those loyal readers who I know, from their personal feedback, look forward to my bi-weekly Sunday posts. It means so much to know that perspectives I share are helpful or clarifying—that they matter even in a small way. But given how hard I’m finding it these days to focus my mind, much less write coherently, I’m not sure I can come up with anything to say, even wanting to.

And truly, the costs of staying so dialed-in on the drama are feeling high.

Muscle tension in my neck, back, and hips is an ongoing problem that’s exacerbated by the hours of sitting, sometimes standing, as I read and/or write. (Yep, I typed that while sitting, feeling it.) I’ll also listen to podcasts and Substack on audio via earbuds if I’m not at my computer, and recently I’ve been noticing bouts of tinnitus, especially when lying in bed trying to fall asleep. It’s as if the noise of the day is reverberating into the silence of the night, wrecking my rest.

Then just yesterday I read an insightful Substack post about the major role the psoas muscle [pronounced SO-as] plays in our health (for those of you who don’t know, it lies deep in our pelvic core, connecting our spine to our upper legs, holds us upright and allows for hip flexion). In particular, this jumped out at me [all emphasis in the original]:

The psoas is often called the “fight-or-flight muscle”. Here’s how it earns that nickname...

When your nervous system detects danger, whether it’s a real threat (like a car swerving into your lane) or a perceived one (like an overwhelming inbox), your sympathetic nervous system kicks in, and the psoas tenses to prep you to run or defend yourself.

In mere seconds, your body floods with adrenaline, your breath gets shallow, and your psoas contracts without you even thinking about it. It's a primal reflex.

The problem is, today’s “tigers” are less about predators and more about traffic, deadlines, and scrolling the news. We’re not sprinting away from threats, but our bodies are still bracing for them.

I can’t help wondering if some of the chronic tension in my body is due to my focus on current events. In our hyper-polarized era, paying attention to political and social issues, culture and the economy, amounts to spectating an endless squabble, a vehement, intractable, global argument. It marinates us in the energy of strife and conflict. So even if I could just relax and dispassionately observe, remain unhooked and unflappable, would it not still extract a karmic price? What we focus our attention on expands, so it seems worth pondering the personal costs of putting too much focus on arguments and conflict—especially those we have no power to resolve.

Which brings me to a comment I came across in my online venturing last week. The statement was made in passing as part of a larger point that I don’t recall. But this little remark stopped me in my mental tracks. In fact it lit up my conscience like a mirror, convicting me. The comment was simply this: In America today, politics has become our entertainment.

Ow. (Wince.) Yes. That’s me. Especially since the launch of Trump 2.0. Information Junkie Leah has reveled in the flood tide of stories and high drama because the mental stimulation is always there and easy to access. It’s cheap thrills requiring nothing but divided attention and an instinct to pick a side. Entertainment for the lowest common denominator. The morally shallow choice.

And to think I was once I was a fiction reader who dreamed of fiction writing.

Which brings me back to that post I linked above, Thinking Again. I published it two weeks before Trump (re)took office, and now, with a third of the year gone, I have clearly made almost no progress in meeting the goal I set for myself at the essay’s conclusion:

Because if there is one thing I am determined to do in this year of our Lord 2025, it’s recover my ability to concentrate, to dive deep, to recall my thoughts and hold onto their connections.

I’m going to find my way back to thinking again.

Small credit to me: breaking my smartphone habit was certainly a step in the right direction. It’s going to help in the long run.

But the real effort remains in figuring out how to escape the cacophony of the news cycle. I surely didn’t anticipate how crazy-intense and noisy the frenzy was about to get. I didn’t anticipate how easily I’d be hooked by the perpetual drama. And I still don’t know if a total moratorium is going to be the answer. I’m not inclined to go that far because politics and current events can be useful and fun to write about when I’m not drowning in their tide.

So for now I guess the answer is: I’m going to disengage from online distractions as much as I can and see what mental space opens up. My publishing goal will be quality over quantity; my commitment will be to keep writing as thoughtfully as I can, without the pressure of a self-imposed posting schedule. And we’ll see what happens.

I’m curious.

And hopeful.

And always grateful for your patience and support.