Sisyphus

I used to read through the Opinion pages of the Times each morning as quickly and easily as a blink of an eye. Now I find myself in a struggle to complete what has become as much a task as it has long been a pleasure.

Like Sisyphus, when I awake I find myself at the bottom of the hill pushing an enormous boulder towards a destination I never reach. Living in Groundhog Day, repeating over and over the almost impossible undertaking of trying to absorb the latest attack on our democracy and not be crushed under the weight of it.

Just today being asked to consider the real life consequences to anti-vaccination thinking, our alliance with enemies of democracy, the efforts to silence our freedom of speech and America's diminished standing in the world.

I have lost my appetite for consuming all this calamitous information. And for my breakfast.

It is the relentlessness that is so draining. I know this is precisely what Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk hope: that by overwhelming us with the sheer magnitude of their efforts to dismantle and destroy, they will dissuade us from dissent. Too tired, too distressed to push that boulder yet one more day

I shall continue to slog on, continue to read and respond. For the alternative is capitulation. And that can never be.

Up the hill once more.