What's John Been Desperately Distracting Himself With?

So I started writing a blog about how Right-wing governments are actually pretty much just officious attacks on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for their "subjects", but then I got real sad, and decided I had to do something else.

Because it is very, very sad. Like, focusing on that type of thing is difficult enough when you are doing so thinking it will help. You wait for these people to make good decisions, to make things right, to stop putting people in charge of organisations that you know they will either dismemeber or devour, to stop making ridiculous decisions that are clearly just self-interest or harmful ideology, and it just...doesn't happen.

Then you turn your frustration and anger outwards. You look for other people that just saw what happened. It's like if you see something fucked up in the street and you look around, like, was I really the only one that saw that?

...and guess what. Yeah. You were. Or at least, you were part of a very small minority. In a crowd of fifteen hundred, you and those two over there are the only ones that even gave a shit that yet another nail has been put in the coffin of life potentially getting better.

Then you try and MAKE people care. You point, you shout. But there's too much other noise. It's not even like it is shouting over pop culture and other random bullshit anymore, either. There is too much shit going on that it all gets collapsed into the same packet of hard-to-deal-with unpleasantness, and people put it on the back burner and ignore it, until it goes away.

(Or until it cripples their economy, robs them and people they know of their livelihood, and turns us all into the broken and battered puppets of an abusive state. But you know jk lolz.)

It's like finding a needle in a haystack, except the stack is made of needles, and the one you are looking for is just slightly more radioactive than the ones around it - which are almost all radioactive as well.

...so instead, I am distracting myself!

Here's some music that I am listening to a fair amount.

Rag'n'Bone Man - Human. This guy's voice is killer. I can't wait to hear more from him. Soulful. True. I love this. He's got this timbre that just hits all the right buttons.

Sublime With Rome - PCH. Oh this is feel-good to die for. So good. If you want to dance, this will make you dance. Big Sublime fan, so when I heard Eric Wilson and Rome Ramirez were collaborating, I had to track some down.

Erra - Drift. Djenty harmonic tech-metal. This song in particular crosses my playlist a lot, usually just before or after Skyharbour and Northlane. I don't like dumb music. This is far from dumb music.

White Denim - Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah). You'd swear this was recorded back in the heady Motown days. Toe-tapping hip-swinging. Another voice with guts behind it. It just FEELS good, on the ears. Got vibes out the wazoo.

Florence + The Machine - Stand By Me. Yes a cover. From the beginning of Final Fantasy XV. It's the best cover of this song that I've ever heard. Right in the feels, over and over again. I've listened to it twice a day since the day I first heard it. I can't help it.

On top of this I have been reading The Expanse books by James S. A. Corey, which are thoroughly good science fiction.

...and that's what has been keeping my head straight. That and my friends and coworkers. A lot of shit has gone down recently, both geopolitical macroshit and personal microshit. So I have to thank those close to me for helping keep me on a level.

So when I've got my shit together - maybe in the new year - the aforementioned blog will happen. Until then, it's just a case of staying above water.