Thinking, or Maybe Doing by Caitlin Roeltgen

I am a person who likes certainty. When I plan for the week, I like to know what I’m doing, when I’m doing it, and how I’ll go about it. I make my meal plans, I do my crosswords, and when I’m stressed, I plan my days down to the minute. Obviously, though, there are things I can’t control. Sometimes it rains, and I push my run back to the next day. Sometimes my walk with a friend goes a little too long and throws off my schedule. Sometimes I read the news and feel absolutely terrible.

And yet for some reason, I still read the news. Why? Is it a part of my civic duty? Is it social? How much is too much, and how much is enough? Again, though, questions I can’t answer. I asked one of my friends, when writing this article, what she thought and what her news-reading habits look like. She doesn’t keep super up to date, but she wishes she did, she told me. And I’ve heard the same thing from friends over the years, from here and from home and from even further. I often feel the same. But why do people feel that way? And why, then, do they not just find the time to read more? 

Let’s consider the former question first. Is it a duty, civic or moral, to know what’s going on in the world? Or is it more a social pressure, a need to feel intellectual? For some, like my friend, it is more social. It’s a part of being able to partake in conversation and avoid feeling ignorant. Often, though, it’s also both. I want to be able to follow complex conversations and know enough to have opinions, yes, but I also read the news out of necessity. Maybe it’s just the journalist in me, but if I’m going to be here, living this life, I should at least be aware of what sucks. 

There’s only so much I can handle, though. To go back to the latter question: why not just read more? Time, for one. Ease of access. But, also, the sheer amount of information available, the overwhelming heaviness of bad event after bad event. The knowledge that the world may feel like it’s collapsing, but we can still run back to our routines and schedules and comfortable campus. My mom may tell me there was another lockdown at the college campus where she teaches in the US, and for a moment I’m upset, but it’s worlds away, and what can I do? Or maybe I read about another war in my New York Times newsletter, and my heart drops, but then I get a notification about my plans for the night from a friend, and everything feels fine again. I have the privilege to move on, to focus on what I have right now, and I get so caught up in it all that feeling a little ignorant is a small price to pay for some optimism. So maybe that’s why I don’t read more, at least somewhat. But I don’t think that’s the right way to go about it. 

It can be easier, sure, to not question what too much is when you never get close. Easier to be optimistic when every headline isn’t yelling at you that the planet is dying, that people are dying. But easier isn’t always better. 

I sat at my desk in my room and stared at a blank sheet of paper a month or two ago. I wanted to send a letter to my elected representative, so maybe, just maybe, he’d vote against funding ICE. Of course, he wouldn’t, but I was so fed up. I couldn’t stand to read something else, so I wrote my thoughts, addressed the letter, stuck the postage stamp in the top right corner, walked to the drop-off point and sent it away. And somehow, for a second, I felt a drip of strength. Maybe it could be okay.

Of course, I got no response, but more recently, I decided I could try again. What was stopping me? I knew people were already sending him emails, so maybe with enough, he’ll reconsider. Vote against the war, listen to your constituents, please, thank you, goodbye, I wrote. I shut my laptop and hoped for a better future. I hoped for some change. And in that moment, I was optimistic, and I was okay. I wasn’t ignoring anything, I wasn’t pushing it all away, I wasn’t turning my head, and yet there was still a flicker of “maybe.” 

The automated response I received two days later confirmed that my instinct was right, that nothing would be done, but instead of getting upset, I was brainstorming, wondering what other ways I could try, just try

. Could I write a piece for a local paper back home? Could I send another email? Should I call? The question, at that moment, wasn’t just “how can I survive?” It wasn’t “what’s the least amount of information I can consume and still call myself informed?” and it wasn’t “what the actual hell?” It was “what am I doing”, and what can I still do? I still don’t know what’s best or how to do it or why we feel the way we do, as students, as humans, as people, but I feel a little bit of power, a little bit of hope, knowing that maybe, someday along the line, if I keep trying, things may get better. There may be a time when the news isn’t screwed up, a time when everyone is safe and cared for, and so, I’ll keep reading the news, I’ll keep trying, and hopefully, keep doing.