When the Unthinkable Becomes Ordinary
I sat down to write this newsletter and, for perhaps the first time in a long time, I didn’t know what to say.
Not because there isn’t anything happening.
Because there is too much happening.
Every morning seems to bring another story that would once have dominated the news for days. Another controversy. Another extraordinary statement. Another social-media image. Another threat. Another argument with someone who, until five minutes ago in historical terms, we considered a friend.
And now we are in an escalating trade war with Canada.
Canada.
Our neighbor. Our ally. The country with which we share the longest international border in the world.
As I write this, Canada has just imposed retaliatory tariffs on approximately $20 billion worth of American products following the latest round of American tariffs on Canadian goods.
Think about that for a moment.
We have reached a point where even writing the sentence “America’s escalating trade war with Canada” doesn’t sound quite as shocking as it should.
And perhaps that is the story.
Not any particular meme.
Not any particular insult.
Not even any particular policy.
The story may be what happens to us when the extraordinary becomes ordinary.
We are becoming accustomed to being astonished.
Human beings have a remarkable ability to adapt.
Usually that’s a blessing.
We survive losses. We adjust to changing circumstances. We learn to live in environments our grandparents couldn’t have imagined.
But adaptation has another side.
We can get used to almost anything.
Things that once would have stopped us in our tracks become another notification on our phones.
Oh. That happened.
Swipe.
He said what?
Swipe.
We’re fighting with Canada now?
Swipe.
And eventually something important begins to happen.
Our capacity for outrage isn’t necessarily disappearing. Our capacity for attention is.
That worries me.
This week also brings us to the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001.
Twenty-five years.
Those of us who lived through that morning remember something younger Americans can know historically but can never completely experience.
We remember where we were.
We remember watching the towers.
We remember the Pentagon.
We remember learning about Flight 93.
We remember nearly 3,000 human beings who left for work, boarded airplanes, kissed spouses goodbye or dropped children at school and never came home.
And we remember something else.
For one brief moment, Americans understood that beneath all our arguments and differences, there was still an us.
That unity didn’t last. History rarely gives us anything that simple.
The years that followed brought wars, political divisions, mistakes, fear, discrimination and consequences we are still debating today.
But the memory itself deserves something from us.
It deserves truth.
History belongs to all of us. It shouldn’t become merely another prop in the political theater of the moment.
And maybe that’s what I’m trying to say today.
I don’t want to become numb.
I don’t want any of us to.
I don’t want a political meme to receive the same emotional weight as a consequential decision affecting millions of people.
I don’t want spectacle to replace substance.
I don’t want repetition to make something true.
And I don’t want exhaustion to convince good people that paying attention no longer matters.
Because it does.
Democracy has always required something surprisingly difficult from ordinary citizens.
Attention.
Not constant outrage.
Not doom-scrolling twelve hours a day.
Not arguing with strangers on Facebook until midnight.
Attention.
The willingness to ask:
Is that true?
What actually happened?
Who benefits from my believing this?
What are the consequences?
What matters here—and what is simply noise?
Those questions aren’t Republican questions or Democratic questions.
They’re citizenship questions.
And perhaps that’s how we navigate a period when the news seems determined to exhaust us.
We don’t have to react to everything.
We don’t have to share everything.
We don’t have to spend our emotional energy on every outrageous statement or ridiculous image that crosses our screens.
But we should never surrender our ability to recognize what matters.
Twenty-five years ago this week, Americans watched something unimaginable happen before our eyes.
We promised we would never forget.
Maybe remembering should mean more than remembering the event.
Maybe it should mean remembering that truth matters.
That alliances matter.
That institutions matter.
That leadership matters.
That our neighbors matter.
And that beneath all the noise of politics, millions of ordinary human beings are simply trying to raise families, pay mortgages, run businesses, care for aging parents, send children to school and live decent lives.
So no, I don’t have another breathless list of this week’s outrages for you.
I think we’re all exhausted enough.
Instead, I have one small suggestion.
Don’t become numb.
Protect your attention.
Protect your ability to distinguish spectacle from substance.
Protect your curiosity.
Keep asking questions.
Keep checking facts.
And when something truly extraordinary happens, don’t allow the sheer volume of extraordinary things to convince you that it is ordinary.
Because sometimes the most dangerous sentence we can say is:
“Well, that’s just the way things are now.”
No.
It isn’t.
And we should remember that.
Thank you, as always, for reading Julie’s Journal, for sharing it with others, and for being willing to think with me.
Until next time,
Julie Bolejack, MBA
The Mindful Activist
subscribe at julies-journal.ghost.io
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