Ours is a confusing time. Political upheavals, climate catastrophes, virulent viruses, predatory superpowers, piratical plutocrats, the startling loss of old virtues (truth, justice, decency, etc.). As L.A. burned, photos of youngsters setting fresh fires – what are we to make of that? A growing likelihood that AI will supersede humans – what are we to make of that?

Some might soothe, “It was always thus – nothing new under the sun,” but is that true? We’ve suffered earthquakes, sure, but so many simultaneously? Many topics discussed in the news I don’t comprehend – when before have I felt so flummoxed, unsettled?

How best to cope? This inquiry itself a novelty. I never wondered how to cope because I knew – if I was sane – without thinking. In a predictable world, my consciousness could anticipate and adjust. These days I feel a mouse in a maze, goaded by shocks. I’m more anxious than I remember – and not just because age has made me frail.

The offenses of the incoming American administration gob-smack me. They’re meant to. Like a boxer on the ropes, I’ve no defense against the next upper-cut: when will the ref call the fight! Jane wants to discuss these outrages to decency and sense: I clap my ears. “Human kind” – moaned T.S. Eliot – “cannot bear very much reality.”

In storms we hunker down, tremble in our enclosures, cling to one another, pray to survive. We must “get through this,” we tell ourselves. But how are we to get through a crisis that never quits?

Plague victims must have felt this way. If half the population’s dying, what to do? Assist? – what good can you do? Run away? – but where? Play dumb? – it’s not that easy.

I try not to caterwaul. I want our time together to be happy. I feel for pleasanter topics than the screaming news. Yet, to engage, we must be honest with each other. No comfort conversing with a liar or a dope. Dog Henry helps me here. He does not dread civilization’s collapse. He doesn’t know what civilization is. For him food, fetch, and friendship are enough.

My emerging M.O. – for this feeling is new to me – is to try for a middle way. I eyeball the news but refuse to obsess: dread is a whirlpool which will suck me under if I let it. I’m reading more poems, as I’ve mentioned, which transport my thoughts skyward. I put on an “antic disposition,” like Hamlet when he’s horror-struck. I hug my friends closer – as Hamlet hugs Horatio. I cook more considerately – cooking distracts me from a world in flames.

Is my avoidance of vileness culpable? Am I chickening out, failing to answer my moment’s call? Yes, in a way. On the other hand – that ever-helpful other hand – what use am I to my loved ones if I collapse? Isn’t my first duty as a person to survive, my first duty as a writer to delight? Mustn’t we sometimes retreat to recover our strength, “live to fight another day”?

Essential to my sanity is acknowledging my impotence. I’m a passenger in my moment, not its pilot: a spectator, not the gladiator in the arena. As an American, I share responsibility for America – but America is not my fault. I forgive myself the mess we’re in. The tides of history exceed any individual’s strength.

I shrug a lot – “Oh well, what can you do?” – and hug a lot – and strive to brighten our ambles best I can. I cannot manage the world but I can – to a degree – my mind. I will be glad, goddammit, if it kills me.