Finding The Right Headspace

I'm looking at a blank screen thinking and figuring out what I should write.

There’s really nothing on my mind, at least nothing related to the usual topics I cover here at Thoughtnami. The state of the media is… well, it’s actually pretty bland. 

Granted, Warner Bros Discovery is still preparing for a split next year while its film division is smashing records with seven consecutive #1 movies in a row, including a Superman movie that was actually about Superman and renamed most of their HBO multiplex channels for some reason and NBC Universal is preparing for their split in a few months and gave MSNBC the stupidest name imaginable.

Disney is becoming Sports Thanos with ESPN and making deals with every major sports league and the WWE, and Paramount got taken over by a reactionary group of techbros who are wrecking the place, gutting the integrity of its news division, and firing critics of their lord and savior to appease his administration just to get the deal approved.

Nexstar is becoming Broadcast Thanos by announcing plans to buy Tegna and creating more unchecked affiliate monopolies (or triopolies as is the case in my home market where the combined company will own three broadcast affiliates that are the homes of NBC, ABC, FOX, and The CW) in nearly every market in the country, and Fox Corp created a streaming service nobody really wants, won a game of chicken with YouTube, and somehow managed to stream about 80% of the Looney Tunes shorts library on Tubi, but it’s all a pretty bland and boring period, if I’m being honest.

Bland and boring doesn’t always pay the bills when it comes to the news, at least not the media news.

That said, I’m glad I don’t cover the national news because what’s going on in the United States is even more shameful than many folks thought it would be.

The United States government has gotten even more openly racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and hostile to anybody who hasn’t drank the Kool-Aid. Oh, wait. That’s about to get banned because it uses artificial food dyes. It’ll be one of many things banned or coming to an  end, like fluoridated water, clean water, wind and solar energy, vaccinations, public schools, public libraries, public television, hot dogs, international tourism and mail, interstate tourism and mail, interstates, bananas, coffee, chocolate, health inspections, IKEA, free over-the-air broadcast television, elections, actual comedy, bubble gum,  the internet… okay, I may be a little facetious about some of these, but at the rate we’re going, it might not be that far-fetched.

Living in a country where people are intimidating, threatening, and taking people away from their homes and families is scary as hell, and it sucks that it’s happening on a federal level in this country in 2025. Granted, it’s been happening for… ever in this country. It’s wild that some laws that criminalized such acts came as recently as 2022. Unfortunately when you have a government that sees the Constitution as unused toilet paper, laws don’t really matter anymore. 

I think that’s where we are now as a country.

Creatively speaking, my headspace is somewhere completely different.

There are days when I’m just constantly writing, creating stories, rewriting older stories I abandoned over the years and reconnecting with that spark I thought I lost, and actually getting back into drawing and designing again. I said it over at Bluesky that writing stories is pretty damn awesome, and it’s probably the only thing keeping me sane nowadays. 

Wish I could say the same for friends of mine. I see way too many of them hurting, fearful of what’s to come because the things they enjoy and cherish in life could easily go away under this new normal world we’re in. 

Too often, I see them scared, afraid to enjoy life, and thinking they or someone they love is going to be taken away and headed to god-knows-where, that their livelihoods would be taken away from them because every security net they have may go away completely, that the medications that help them find themselves mentally and physically will be banned, or that they would be forbidden to live a normal life because they accepted who they are while the government demonizes their very existence. 

That’s not living. That’s hell, and I feel for my friends who are dealing with all of that.

At times, I feel powerless. I can’t take away the legitimate fears of my friends. I get frustrated seeing such absolute evil I see taking place in the country I tolerate. I say tolerate because I hesitate to say love because, let’s be honest, I don’t really love this country. I was born here. I live here. I have nowhere else to go because no other place in the world would want me. That being said, I know the history of the country in regard to people who look me, and I know it doesn’t want me either, so I just exist here. 

It’s frustrating, but I have to keep on keeping on, not just because I have a lot of responsibilities on the other side of the screen but also to spite those who say I shouldn’t be here and thrive on my misery, pain, frustration, fear, and hate. I don’t want to give them that satisfaction.

Because of all of these things, I sit in front of a blank screen thinking and figuring out what I should write. I’m sure inspiration will hit me one of these days.