Confessions of a Doomscroller

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The more you want to get away from it, the easiest it finds you. Bad news and ominous signals have an inexorable way of powering their way to your skull. Regardless of how badly you want to get away from them. Our loss aversion makes us more attentive to bad news, because not acting on negative risk meant literally dying when we were apes. 

Wanna know the saddest part of all this? This is still very much true in the year 2022. 

I remember telling myself once and again when I heard nonstop reports on Russian amassing troops on the border with Ukraine before the invasion: 

"Enough already! This whole 'will-he/will-he-not invade' non sense is getting tiresome. Of course Putin won't invade! I'm sick of this media alarmism. I mean, the costs are massive. Ukraine is too big a country. It's not Syria. It borders NATO, for God's sake! All Putin has to do to win is retreat, don't invade, and say 'See? I told you! Biden's a warmonger. I told you all along that I was just doing some exercises in my territory. He just wants to provoke panic and confront me. I'm above that. And now I'm retreating." 

It would've been the greatest troll prank in history. Putin would've destroyed Biden with this high-road play. Fox News would've feasted on the Biden administration's carcass. "Inflation! Covid deaths! Deficits! Impending recession! And all Biden does is create a smoke screen trying to goad Putin into war? Impeach him already!" 

Maybe that was me trying to protect my mental health. I mean, we had just had our world shattered in 2020 with a pandemic that shook us to our core. Our pre-pandemic normality vanished forever. We were left stunned at the speed with which our formerly blissful life simply was ripped apart. 

This couldn't just happen again. I mean, a nuclear power dropping bombs in a NATO-bordering country? Who's writing this dystopian storyline, the creators or the Saw horror franchise?

Nassim Taleb had told us that a Black Swan event (like the pandemic) is an event so rare that once it happens, it can't be followed by another Black Swan event. Or can it? We were bound for a reprieve, goddammit! We had just conquered the death graphs of Omicron. But he also told us that the very definition of a Black Swan is that they come when you least expect them. Because, of course they do. 

Alas. We have a tendency to believe that past events can alter future outcomes. We stupidly synthesize reality as a causal series of linear events. Truth is, there's no fucking pattern --not linear, at least. You and I are nothing but insignificant ants fighting chaos. Powerless. Agentless. If an aspiring political Russian ex-KGB operative eager to be friendly and cooperate with the West in the early 2000's turns bitter and goes Anakin on us, you and I have nothing to do but Doomscroll to see where the next bombed Ukranian Nuclear plant happens. Not that you can do anything about it, mind you. Just so that you know with advance notice that the spark to Nuclear annihilation has been ignited.

And yes, you grasp at straws at tweets of miraculously heroic Ukranian soldiers. Boxing millionaire champions who take up arms. Former professional tennis players taking up arms. School teachers, karate instructors, stage actors, bakers, IT directors, firefighters joining the effort to fight invaders. American veterans live-tweeting their adventures fighting Russians. And then you have the Klitschko brothers. The closest thing the world has to He-Man. And Ukraine has 2 of them. 

And yet, the massacre of Mariupol continues on. Unabated. Relentless. Merciless. The wipeout of an entire city goes on. Like Aleppo. Like Grozny. While I am here, in the comfort of a chair. Letting my anxieties out while writing a post about how powerless and depressing it is to witness a war live on Twitter. 

Like the Pandemic, this war is a reminder of the good things that you have. And how thankful you should be for everything you have. Your health. Your loved ones. Your things. It makes you remember how it could be you the one who's forced to suddenly pick up your dog, 3 bags of essentials, and instantaneously renounce to everything you've built your whole life in exchange for (maybe) being able to live.

This is the last photo of Max Levin, documentarian killed in Ukraine

Count your blessings. Hug your loved ones. Donate and Pray for Ukraine. 


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[The photo shown is the last photo of Max Levin, documentarian killed in Ukraine]

Black Belt in Chin-itsu, Certified ISO Chin-Thousand, Lousy at Golf,

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