Back on Twitter#

When things got crazy on January 6th, I logged back on to Twitter for the first time in a while. After spending a bit too much time looking for good news amongst all the bad in the first few years of the Trump era, I had decided to delete the app from my phone. But you can still sign in from the phone’s browser, and it conveniently shows up in your favorites when you open a new tab! As the news of the attack on the Capitol poured in, I found myself voraciously consuming the days’ content, apalled at what I was reading. I then fell into a familiar pattern of refreshing the news feed hoping for a shoe to drop - an announcement on impeachment proceedings, signs of dissention in the GOP ranks, Trump finally being held accountable for something, etc. But the validation never quite comes: our country is messy and complicated, and easy answers just aren’t there.

Looking Up#

It’s easy for me to get sucked in at times like that, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m not contributing anything to the discourse - I’m just a consumer. And even if I had a few tens of thousands of followers and said things that caught people’s attention, I’d probably just be feeding their filter bubbles with a bit more of the same.

I’d like to be able to make a bigger impact on the issues I care about: climate change, racial justice, empowering women and minority groups, immigrant rights, and a right to healthcare, and more. I desperately want our two children to grow up in a world that’s even better than the one I came of age in. I can donate to a charity, I can attend a protest (at least, pre-pandemic), and I can vote. That all matters, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I started my career working on the right to healthcare at Partners In Health and I’d love to work full-time on a cause again in the future. In the meantime, I’m left searching for answers on how to make the world a bit better with the time that I have.

Finding Joy#

Here’s a simple thing I’ve found that works: do something that brings me joy, and be fully present for it. And parenting can be that. Kids take a lot of time and attention, but it’s a little too easy to be half-in-half-out. I can play with blocks with my daughter and also have my phone in my right hand, glancing down now and then to refresh that news feed. I can be lying on the floor while our son does a little tummy time and be thinking about a problem at work or the to-do-list I have for house projects. When I do that, I’m not giving them the attention they deserve and I’m not making myself feel much better either.

When I devote myself to them, I smile more, laugh deeply and feel a bit of the weight of the world falling away. Blocks, books and jumping on beds can be a great stress relief it turns out. And I know they can feel the difference in my attention. Being a good dad makes their world better, and maybe that’s enough right now!