Preserving my Sanity

The late Pearly Greyhound in her safe space

For the sake of my sanity, I’ve stopped reading, watching or listening to the News.

The situation in Ukraine is undeniably a tragedy, and the threat to the rest of the world shouldn’t be underestimated. I’m glad NATO is taking it seriously, because that  means they will (hopefully) resist doing anything that might trigger Putin’s button-pushing finger. But headlines with emotive words like ‘chilling warning’ and ‘deadly nuclear attacks’ are just ramping up the fear to an unnecessary level, which is no good for anyone.

Last week I kept raking the media for some good news, but the headlines were getting worse every day and I ended up being unable to sleep. Then, half-buried in a piece in the Evening Standard, I found a line that gave me a ray of hope. It said the risk of a nuclear attack is small – one in eighty, according to an existential risk expert. Reading this gave me some breathing space, some relief from the feeling of imminent doom.

Obviously, no risk would be better. Nuclear war is still a possibility. But the future contains many other possibilities, and I would rather focus on a more positive outcome. I might be burying my head in the sand, and Putin might blow my ass off while it’s in there; but I’d rather have my head in the sand than have it drive me crazy with mental horror movies while I’m trying to get to sleep at night.

One in eighty. For now, that’s going to be my mantra.