A polarized world

The last two months have been very depressing. Lots of work, travel recovery, news in general, a busier schedule for the kids as school and all their extra curriculars start off full swing and all these made the bags under the eyes more pronounced and dropped my energy level to an all time low. 

It became noticeable to the point where wife and kids pushed me out of the house and said "why don't you go to yoga class?" That was a clear signal that something was way off. They said that at least for an hour after coming home I was a little chirpy. (that used to be 4 hours after coming home!). Got a doctors appointment last week and told my doctor "wife and kids are saying I am moping around all the time and my energy level or interest level in anything and everything is going down rapidly".

The doctor said I was physically very fit. My blood pressure was excellent as was my blood oxygen level. A blood test for a bunch of things was checked off to see if there are issues related to metabolism etc. etc. While I did not understand the jargon, went for the test and got the results. Turns out my Vitamin D levels are off the charts this time on the low side and that is directly related to being depressed. I did have the same issue three years ago but it was low, not this low. 

Going to walk in the sun at least for an hour with short sleeve shirts or no shirt if possible every day, take prescription Vitamin D and check again in few months. That takes care of one part of the problem.

The kids extra curricular schedule has been juggled to the best of our ability, some classes have stopped, others combined to multitask with groceries, yoga class drives, conference calls that can be done while driving long distance to drop kids off in class etc. etc. That will hopefully help in the coming months

The last part is the "news". I interact with "news" once in the morning and evening listening to NPR during work and home drives. Check google news headlines once during lunch and the rest of it is from watching Daily show or Colbert report (now watching previous nights show online at dinner time of Trevor and Colbert's shows). Also watch John Olivers Sunday show on one of the weekday nights at dinner time.  Everything I hear in those interactions is downright depressing. 

It almost appears as though the sane folks have lost their voice and the extreme loonies are the only ones left screaming from the rooftops. 

Forget the war on drugs and the war on terror. My opinion is that there is a war on facts and data right now. Have a lot of data points that say it is not just opinion, but a fact.

There is a lot of fear mongering out there which is pitting people against people on almost every issue. 

You turn on the news and it is all about Immigrants, refugees, war, weapons and discrimination. Some of it is not even news. It is a bunch of folks peddling outright misinformation on national channels. How they are able to do this with impunity with no consequence is beyond me. They should be prosecuted for hate crimes and treason because the misinformation they propagate is actually not in the interest of the country or the people watching them.

Having lacked Vitamin D and being lost in thought all the time, one thing keeps recurring. The basic ability to put oneself in another's shoes seems to have become a rarity. The people who do not have the ability to reason out things seem to have a louder voice than the folks who can ask the repeated "why?" and dig down deeper. 

How do you reason with the unreasonable? That is a tough one. 

Had a long rant of a post on faith vs. religion and what is going on in the US and India with all the Islamophobia and if there will be any reprieve for the folks in the middle east. It was about how poor muslims and sectarian minorities in local geographic areas get screwed over by richer muslims or western countries. The post in itself was so depressing to read that I deleted it. 

There are still a lot of good people in this world that can move it forward. Working on raising two that will hopefully join that category. First thing to work on is to teach them that faith in something (preferably themselves) is a good thing. Next thing to work on is to teach them that religion is a crutch not an asset. Think they are already on the right path on some things but they are fanatical about Apple. So have to wean them off of that. 

Enough with the rant. Onwards we move.. and to post something positive to make up for all this negativity...

Today I learned the difference between having your "chin touch your shoulder" vs. "cheek touch your shoulder" and what a big difference it makes! A post on that later.