Almost posts

Every year, I have many posts that never make it out of draft stage. This month in particular, it seems, there have been a lot that never even made it even that far.

I’ve written repeatedly about how much I’ve come to abhor the negativity of political commentary on the Internet. There’s so much venom scorched with fire and smelling of brimstone that sometimes I don’t even want to turn on my computer. Okay, that’s not actually true, but it nearly is.

Every single say I see things on the Internet that I want to say something about and I think, “what for?!” Yeah, I have my opinion and viewpoint, but does it really add anything to understanding or debate? Usually, these days, I say it doesn’t and I never even write the post.

The surprising thing, maybe, is that this extends even to things closer to home. I’ve written about my periodontal adventures, but even there I don’t talk about everything. Some of it is time—not enough of it—but a lot is similar to political discussions: I just don’t want to dwell on the negative.

Last week, for example, was not a good week, as I talked about (lightly) in my most recent tooth post. The truth is, each treatment was more uncomfortable than the one before, and so was the recovery in the days after. Also, my teeth have become quite sensitive to cold, which is uncomfortable on an ongoing basis (so far).

I haven’t dwelled on any of that because I don’t see the point. Yes, things were “bad”, but let’s get real here: I’ve had weeks and fortnights that were far, FAR worse. And, the whole point of this ordeal was that it will make my life better in the long run, quite possible simply by making it longer than it would have been without the treatments. I can endure quite a lot for that sort of payoff.

I’ve come to understand through all of this that it’s not about whether the glass is really half empty or half full, nor even which we perceive it to be. Instead, for me, it’s about whether I want to exist in a place where those are the only options. Sometimes, the glass is empty-ish, and other times it’s full-ish. But life, our politics and our challenges are almost never even nearly as binary as our rhetoric would suggest.

I choose to exist mainly in the moment, looking for the way forward, rather than whining and moaning about all the things that I don’t like or that I find challenging at that moment. There’s a time and place for challenging one’s adversaries and difficulties, but that time is not every day and that place is, these days, not always here.

Naturally, I’ll have more to say about this in future posts, and I’ll elaborate on the things that have made me reconsider. Those posts will be the ones that actually make it into draft stage and beyond.