I’m exhausted and a touch old ‘n busted. The exhaustion is because people either want to fight over every opinion on every topic or they want validation for every opinion on every topic. I’m old ‘n busted, because, well – OH the tales I could tell. Work hard, play harder! Scars often have great stories. But, back to the exhaustion. Because I’m tired, I decided to disengage.

I’m grateful that I have such a varied group of friends and acquaintances. However, regardless of left or right leanings (which is terminology that came about during the French Revolution), I know far too many people who are yelling from the hilltops that they want to be in an echo chamber of their own beliefs because they don’t want to hear anything from the other side.

The woke adult equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears, shaking your head, and saying, “Nyah nyah nyah, I can’t hear you!”

The other week I decided to forego my using posting of what I viewed as thought and conversation provoking articles on the book of faces. Why? Because they weren’t productive. Comments were tiresome. And even as someone who is fairly pedantic in my answers, I was finding my fellow pedants to be annoying.

So, I started to post a funny meme once a day.

A friend who is a hard-and-fast supporter of 45 sent me a video that I actually watched, some good points were made, and I responded blandly, but made the mistake of signing off with how I would never vote for our present president. That set off a couple more emails, the last berating the “liberal left who can only resort to name calling”. The irony was that the whole email referred to anyone who liberal beliefs about anything as “Left”, “the Left”, or “Lefties”.

After a long, slow blink upon seeing that email and deciding I hadn’t had enough coffee, I thought I’d go back to it later. I did. Then, I made sure that there was nothing to which I needed to respond and I deleted it. This friend is a truly, caring person, and they are one of those folks that if you need help with anything you can call them and they will be there. But, going rounds over politics doesn’t appeal to me.

This is not to say I’m not interested. Oh, I’m interested. But, I’ve come to the conclusion this year that my opinion matters not in the grand scheme of things. If you agree with me on a topic, you’re just going to nod in agreement. If you disagree with me on a topic, you’re going to, most likely, tell me how I’m wrong but not actually have a discussion.

I’ve seen posts than I can count by friends and acquaintances that declare they are “unfriending” anyone and everyone in their network that doesn’t agree with everything they believe. Really? Everything? What about the great mustard vs. ketchup debate on hotdogs?

So, I’m practicing disengagement.

Much like keeping expectations low and attachments to people and things at a minimal, disengaging from unproductive situations is now become part of my practice.

Have you lost friends or disconnected with family over the highly polarized politics of our day?
What are you doing to save your sanity?

The Amusing Muse is a writer, student, and brusher of cats who lives in Southern Wisconsin. She has moved her houseplants indoors for the winter, including the bananas, and doesn’t think she brought any tree frogs in with them. She is enjoying the wisdom that seems to be sneaking in with age.

Clipart in Blog Post Title Image courtesy of Clipart.com