Spiral in Current Events

I have concluded that I do not have very good sense-making skills. I do not immediately accept what I see in the media as the truth because I am aware that my feeds and Google searches are manipulated and have algorithms that they all have agendas behind them. I’m also aware that I am reactionary. My emotions get hijacked by what I see and that affects my sense-making and choice making. I have some choice in where I put my attention and the meanings I make and I have a choice in my process of belief but am I making these conclusions on my own? Overwhelm is a choice I often indulge in and I let myself spiral and that is not useful. I want to commit to thinking about things in a way that allows me to respond usefully. I’ve been pretty tongue-tied the last few days about the events that have been going on.

What are the knowns? What are the unknowns? How do I put some sense-making in those areas? How do I respond? What am I supposed to feel? I don’t want to do or say things that will make things worse. Here is what I think. I think the real war right now is the one over our minds. If they can control our minds then they can control our behaviours. Our minds are the battleground and there is a narrative war right now and we all think that we’re doing a good job at sense-making but we’re being played. People at the top in power don’t actually believe in left vs right, they just believe in power and they signal left or right as part of their warfare to control the voters. This is all just to get people to do things and we suck at doing things.

There is nobody alive today from the great depression to mentor us through the next one. Nobody from the great famines to mentor us through the next one. Nobody from World War 11 to mentor us through the next one. There have always been intelligence agencies that infiltrated the more recent relevant progressive movements, Civil Right & Second Wave Feminsin etc to specifically derail them so why would that practice not be going on today? I just don’t know how to make sense of what is happening right now. This new race war in America. China moving in on Hon Kong to get in on their free trade deals with America. The tension at the border between China and India. The interactions between China, India, Pakistan and Russia. The second wave of COVID in Germany and China after reopening, is that going to happen after these protests in the west? Tensions were already high here as we were experiencing our free trial of Socialism during this lockdown. Nigeria already had populations with food insecurity, 25 million people just ran out of food because our food supply chain is broken because of COVID. Another mass exodus will follow and after Syria where will they even go? Is Nigerian culture compatible with western culture? I barely even know what is going on with any of those situations over there. Why is my country in bed with China? What is my PM doing and why is he giving them our tax dollars? Why are conservatives being silenced in the media here and everywhere? Why are leftists unable to assess true information? How do facts not tell them anything? Why is everybody making Trump the boogeyman in all of this? Is this all orchestrated just to control votes? These riots are creating more victims, why is everybody condoning this? When did I dumb down my emotional intelligence? Or am I finally stoic? How do we replace these failing systems with better ones? Are we just compounding the worst aspects of the old ones right now? Was some version of these events always going to happen? What is even happening? Everybody is feeling righteous in their reactivity but are they just pawns for forces that are doing strategy? I’m spiralling. I’m overwhelmed. The world is having a complete system failure right now.