Outrage Fatigue

I can feel it permeating my bones, saturating my muscles, seeping through my veins. Outrage fatigue. There’s no cure in sight. A $25 billion border wall, tariff on solar panels, air pollution regulations weakened…and that’s just this week. It’s been more than a year now. I can’t stay in a state of perpetual rage. I’m starting to roll my eyes, shrug my shoulders. I’m starting to look the other way.

I observe the symptoms in myself. I’m accustomed, now, to each new headline being more outrageous, each tweeted insult being more rule-breaking and mind-bending, than the one before it. Where once I marched to the phone with righteous anger and contacted Congress, the White House, the Army Corps of Engineers…now I sigh, and click on over to another website, looking for better news. Oh, good, there’s a Royal wedding in the offing, the Oscars are coming up soon…

And yet. Seems like things have been bleak for an eternity, but it’s only been a year. How long did it take women to get the vote? How long did slavery last? How many years was the Holocaust? This is going to be a long haul.

That border wall is going to cut right through a national wildlife refuge. I take a deep breath, and pick up the phone, and get ready for one more. One more phone call to Congress, one more march, one more voter registration drive, and then another, and another, and another…