Attention Is The Most Basic Form Of Love

Replenish and reset

Lately I am feeling over-informed.
I read recently that 42% of Americans “sometimes” or “always” avoid the news, which is a record high for that survey. On the other end of the spectrum, psychologists advise that some Americans suffer from something called “problematic news consumption”, compulsively consuming negative information to the point where they feel unwell; media consumption of upsetting information can even lead to vicarious traumatization, with both acute and long-term impacts.

It’s a tough balance to strike. Staying informed can be hazardous to your health in the polycrisis, but being uninformed leads to confusion, anxiety, poor decisionmaking, and fascism.

Being sick of reading and hearing stuff is a strange state of mind to be in, since I'm turning in my book in four weeks. How can I possibly impose 80,000 words on the world when I can barely make it through all the messages on my WhatsApp groups?

So I’m going to take a little break here for the next two weeks and try to re-set my mind. I’m going to leave you here with a few things that have caught my attention lately, and some of my top posts from the past to check out.

The Mamdani Sweep

Three House candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won their seats handily. Brad Lander is a solid progressive with a long track record, and Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier are younger Democratic Socialist of America members who both came to prominence in the Gaza protest and encampment movement.

Mamdani’s being hailed as a “kingmaker” and the victories have caused ripples across the Democratic party. As a resident of NY-7, where my congresswoman is now Valdez, and a Jewish person committed to justice for Palestine and peaceful coexistence in the region, here’s my take:

-This win wasn’t just about Mamdani, it was about ground game. The enthusiasm for all three candidates was organic and DSA organized the heck out of it. My door was knocked twice for Valdez, I got text messages from acquaintances, multiple phone calls, there was tabling during the Knicks finals games in the park. In return, Reynoso had mailers and push polls, which were almost negative symbols in terms of money steering the race vs. real grassroots enthusiasm.

-What’s important about DSA isn’t that they’re “socialists.” It’s that they stand for something: strengthening unions, taxing the rich, Medicare for all, and not lending American military aid to wars of annihilation. They have commitments to an identifiable constituency. This is what gets people off the sidelines; not tacking to the center, leading with conviction.

Anat Shenker-Osorio , messaging guru, says that in the midterms:

A win must be toward enacting an agenda. The majority of voters want affordable healthcare, strong unions, taxes on billionaires, freedom for all to vote, and no more ICE agents abducting their neighbors and operating prison camps in their communities — not merely as slogans but as policy accomplishments.

The pundits offering pronouncements on how to win, and the groups turning out voters, have to aim at a vote that means something. The candidates we elect have to understand what they were sent to do. Not to post about prices. Not to find common ground with people who are destroying common humanity.

The Prairieland ICE protests

Last July 4, there was a protest outside a Texas immigration detention center. An officer with the Alvarado Police Department responded to the scene and there was an exchange of gunfire. The officer allegedly sustained minor injuries—but authorities have never provided hospital records to justify these claims. A former US Marine Corps reservist, Benjamin Song, was convicted of attempted murder and received a 100-year prison term. Seven other protesters received sentences ranging from 30 to 70 years. The 30-year term went to a man who was not at the protest. He is accused of moving a box of anti-fascist and anarchist zines and pamphlets, in an alleged conspiracy to hide evidence implicating his wife. His wife was sentenced to 70 years with this “conspiracy” being part of her charges.

Benjamin Song has released a moving statement, which you can read in full here. He says he shot to stop the officer from shooting someone else.

I don’t hate. I don’t hate anyone. I don’t hate cops. I don’t hate Trump. I don’t hate Nazis. My beliefs are composed thus:

First, that we should help each other.

And second, that we should protect one another.

Now, 22 people have been arrested, have been persecuted, have been tortured, for what?

For nothing.

None of these people really did anything.

And none of these people have anything to do with what happened with me.

This is wrong. This is mass punishment. This is collective punishment. This is guilt by association. This is injustice.

Back in 1895, the white supremacist and U.S. Senator, Pitchfork Ben Tillman, gave a speech to the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina on how to use injustice to take power. He said, “how did we recover our liberty? By fraud and violence.” We tried to overcome the 30,000 majority by honest means which was a mathematical impossibility. After burying these indignities for eight years, life became worthless.”

This is how men take power over others. By injustice, by fraud and violence.

That history matters because injustice has always been dangerous. It does not only harm the person standing in court. It spreads. It teaches people to be afraid. It teaches people that the government can decide who is guilty first and look for reasons afterward.

The Iran War and the energy transition

World Economic Forum:

Energy shocks remind policymakers that dependence on imported fossil fuels creates vulnerability, while local energy supply, including domestic renewables, provides resilience. For example, Vietnam’s solar build-out, initially pursued primarily as a climate measure, is providing a meaningful buffer against gas-price spikes... Such shocks often result in a short-term rise in emissions, followed by a longer-term structural shift toward cleaner energy systems.

It’s been exactly three years since I started this Substack, and in that time my audience has grown fivefold. You all have chosen to give me some of your most precious resource, attention, and that’s a gift I don’t take lightly. Please enjoy these posts, and I'll see you after the 4th.

My first post

You are living through a polycrisis, and it affects your psyche.

It breaks your heart sometimes when you look at your children or grandchildren and wonder what they’re facing; maybe you’re hesitating over having children or have decided not to. When the planet is blowing through temperature records, your email inbox seems meaningless; but you’re not necessarily an ‘activist,’ don’t feel like part of a movement, don’t know where to start with all this. You don’t need to look at more graphs or charts; you want a space to reflect on how we live and how we care for each other on this changing planet, at a time like this.

One key answer: With joy and a sense of humor.

Top post of all time

I’m not advocating for unfiltered trauma dumping, but opening up and being more honest about my pain and uncertainty and being able to hear others’ and be with it, without rushing to fix or give advice, was a big step for me toward knowing and being truly known by more people.

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We adapt to the unforgivable, we continue on despite the unimaginable, we pray in the rubble.

This is beautiful and nothing less than human, yet it is profoundly dangerous. And it can also make you feel queasy and exhausted, like wearing the wrong prescription glasses, everything too close and jarringly far away at the same time.

What’s the remedy? What’s the use? What’s the alternative?

Saying what’s happening plainly and clearly feels good to me, and I recommend it. So does showing up as and when I can, and aiding the ones that need it in the ways I can.

We need to tune in and we need to take breaks.

The image that’s coming to me right now is of sailors midvoyage, long out of sight of land, trading off the duty watch. At some point, regularly, for every single person, it falls to us to stay alive to danger—to call it out as loud and as clear as we can.

Be vigilant, yes, when it is your vigil to keep. But you can’t keep a good watch if you don’t take your turn snoring in the hammock too.

At other times we cook and clean, mend nets, do the chores that keep us going.

Sometimes we will play the pipe and the fiddle and cheer and stomp away. Never forgetting we are at sea, singing about the storms, the beasts of the deep, and the ones we lost.

Sometimes we must study the charts that keep us on course, and keep the log for future wanderers.

And sometimes—sometimes—it is all hands on deck.