Scrolling while the world burns

Our brains aren't designed to cope with a world where dog videos and memes share space with graphic images of war...

Prince Charles to undergo surgery for an enlarged prostate”

“What does a polycule actually look like?”

“What on Earth is happening in JLo’s movie musical?”

“This doctor amputated his daughter’s leg without anaesthesia”

“Princess of Wales in hospital following abdominal surgery”

“MPs pass the Rwanda bill - what happens next?”

“Your reusable water bottle contains 40,000 more germs than your toilet”

So much noise. So many questions. So many problems. And yet, with the exception of my kid’s apparently gross water bottle - which presumably has at least slightly fewer germs on account of it being his third replacement so far this year - so little I feel able to process, let alone solve. 

Normally, when I sit down to write this newsletter, I ask myself a very simple question: what do I care about this week? What has caught my attention, made me laugh/cry/rage/want to explore my thoughts? This week though, that question feels impossible to answer, my mind a muddle of pointless information and heartbreaking horror.

Because here in the Middle East, in addition to all the usual noise and chaos of modern life, there is a new and unsettling atmosphere that we’re all, to varying degrees of success, trying to learn to live with.