While in Egypt this summer, I decided to give up reading politics for good, or at least for the foreseeable future. But this was actually the culmination of a process that started October 7, 2023–almost two years ago.
Up until then, I had been a die-hard, bleeding heart liberal who read progressive blogs every day. Those beliefs, and the uproar over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, inspired me to go with my family to Washington, D.C., for a pro-Palestine protest in November. But I had a meltdown at the event, and I decided that politics wasn’t my thing anymore.
However, that decision didn’t last long, and over time I discovered more sites and Substacks, each more radical than the last. I began to hate the media for not being progressive enough. Hate everyone who could possibly even be a conservative. Hate those who didn’t care about politics. I saw them as either America-haters or complicit in this nation’s destruction.
I was slowly becoming the monster I saw in others, and I wasn’t even paying attention.
After the last election, my world was turned upside down. How could things have gone so wrong? If liberalism was the truth, then why had so many Americans rejected it?
And yet, I continued to read politics.
Over the months, the creators I followed became more radical, more angry at the world, and I absorbed their anger. Unfortunately, it wasn’t usually reserved for those harming the country and its people. Instead, I subconsciously aimed it at whole ethnicities and nationalities.
White people.
Christians and Jews.
Americans.
And eventually, humanity itself.
I was slowly becoming the monster I saw in others, and I wasn’t even paying attention.
Fortunately, my family saw what was happening to me and took steps to limit my political consumption. They installed topic blocks on my laptop. They deleted Microsoft Word as a browser when I used it to get around the blocks. They encouraged me to spend less time on the Internet and more time reading and writing fiction.
Unfortunately, everything worked only for a short time, and then I went back to politics. Back to the topics that were eroding my compassion, my empathy, my creativity.
I was becoming more miserable, more self-hating, more racist in the process.
In the end, it took three days of being offline at the Red Sea with my extended family for me to realize it: In order to stop reading politics, I had to be the one to give up for myself. Nobody else could do it for me.
And so I stopped cold turkey. No more genocides, no more wars, no more political history. This was all over for me.
It was difficult, and I went through withdrawal, where the hatred would come roaring back, begging me to let it consume my soul. There were times when I wanted to go back, even if just for worldbuilding.
But I knew the results would be the same, and I did not want to experience that.
Eventually, I regained my creativity, compassion and empathy. I started writing fiction again. I learned to forgive myself for my past wrongdoings.
It’s an ongoing process, and some days are better than others. Sometimes I feel like I’m too broken to be fixed. But then I remind myself that I don’t have to be perfect, that I can continue to improve even after screwing up.
And that realization is more valuable than anything any political article or blog can give me.
Velocity 
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