Are you struggling with the horror of news coming out of Ukraine?

I took an inventory today of what currently occupies my thoughts. A no-judgment, literal mindmap, sprawling across two large pages of what has caught and held my attention recently.

It was a mess: commitments and the needs of people that I care about, some heavy-duty writing projects that have required deep dives into research, also swathes of the little details of life—but a good quarter of my list involved details of the war in Ukraine.

Newshound

It’s easy to be a newshound. The unfolding of a story in real-time, especially via Twitter, is so compelling that I am easily hooked.

I appreciate the work of on-the-ground journalists like Oz Katerji and Illia Ponomarenko, or historians able to share expertise unfiltered by the time constraints of traditional media, like military historian Dr. Peter Caddick-Adams. Others have curated lists of trustworthy sources, like Jon Ostrower, Editor-in-chief of The Air Current, who compiled the Open Source Intelligence list regarding the invasion.

But with the war in Ukraine, this full-on flood of news is especially overwhelming: the alarming possibilities of escalation, the shocking revelations of atrocities, also the inspiring courage of Ukrainians and their President.

And so the news’ cycle sweeps on and increasingly horrific realities proliferate. There needs to be accountability for war crimes and there may never have been more real-time truth flooding out.

May it change the course of the war for the better, for the briefer.

John Constable, Cloud Study, Public domain

Time to Recalibrate

But there comes a time to recalibrate. To stop and rest. Or to stop and attempt to create. Or to stop and pray.

A week into the invasion, in early March, author Oliver Burkeman shared a thoughtful response to the crisis in his always excellent newsletter, The Imperfectionist.

The title was, ‘Becoming News-Resilient.’

Figuring out how to consume news sanely – how to keep your head, when everyone on social media is losing theirs – is only going to become an even more critical skill for living a composed and purposeful life.
Assuming you're not reading this in an active war zone, it doesn't follow that you need to mentally inhabit those stories, all day long.
I think it really is OK to shift your centre of psychological gravity back from the news cycle to the world around you. The question is… how?

Burkeman suggests a middle path between the impractical one of simply renouncing all news or the repugnant one of full-on pampering oneself. He suggested an attempt to stay informed but to ‘put the internet back in its box.’ He concludes:

Don't wait. Not just because marinating in the news helps no-one, but because what you'll be doing instead – meaningful work, keeping your community functioning, being a good-enough parent or a decent friend – that stuff actively does help. There's something you're here to do. And I highly doubt that it's doomscrolling.

Take a Deep Breath

I took my list today and basically handed it all back, all my trivial preoccupations, and all the enormous. I folded over the quarter of the page that listed war concerns: lost dog stories, dead dog stories; war atrocities; gains and losses; incidents and reactions; the latest lies and justifications out of Russia, and the great shifts in world power that are unfolding before our eyes.

On the page beneath the folded portion, I began to list some of the smaller tasks that actively seem to keep me sane and have worked in the past in times of pressure and stress to mark a path through.

and Remember Bloodymindedness

The traumas are real. But the idea of self-care is a little repellant to me. My grandfather, a prisoner-of-war in Singapore, held by the Japanese in World War II—my gold standard sane survivor—did not make it through with self-care but with resilience and grit and bloodymindedness—a profound determination. I am privileged not to be in a war zone. Though, the drive-by shooting at the end of our street a few days ago was close enough.

A bit of bloodymindedness right now might not go amiss in getting my work done. Nonetheless, I’ve picked some quiet things that to me are a deep breath first.

The Pick List for a Little Less News

Take care of some plants, inside or out.
Clean something for 10 minutes.
Tidy something for 10 minutes
Get up at dawn and watch the sunrise.
Write yourself a letter dated a week/a month/a year from now. (I’ll post more about this surefire brilliant idea, introduced to me by Michael Nobbs.)
Drive to the beach and go for a walk.
Take binoculars for a walk locally.
Sit (for me) on the back deck, facing west at dusk, and watch the light change.
Take time on a Friday afternoon for some art fun with someone you love, for me, it will be with my youngest daughter, a tradition we’ve fallen out of.
Draw something.
Ink up a fun fountain pen.
Enjoy some meditative lettering.
Send a real piece of mail to someone.
Light a candle, make some tea, sit and sip and read.

Please excuse this list if you find it too trivial; instead if you need it, make your own list of what works for you.

This is simply what I wrote down as alternatives to pick from in the next season when I need to choose to step away from the news.

You might also like the post, Staying Sane With Art, with details of Danny Gregory’s brilliantly simple book, Art Before Breakfast, if drawing intimidates you and you’d like to try it.

The Everyday Treasures

I hope you’ll join me in doing something offline that feels like a deep breath.

I will still be checking the news. And then, back with survivor-Grandad bloodymindedness to the things I can do that make the world around me continue to run, which is very much what those around me need.

Trial and trauma expose the value of the everyday, the ordinary, that is so heartlessly destroyed, especially, by war. Baking bread becomes resistance.