How to Behave During the Apocalypse

Just in time for the holidays.

This week was… a week. One of those unforeseen weeks where my attention was dominated by matters demanding urgency and care. And so, here I find myself on a Sunday evening, not only without a finished essay (a not totally uncommon occurrence, if I’m being honest) but without the bandwidth to execute one.

Rather than skip or postpone or go straight to this week’s card, I wanted to take this opportunity to interrupt our regular programming and acknowledge something I’ve heard from quite a few people this week — that the holidays feel especially hard.

Holidays can be tricky for so many of us, for so many reasons. Hell, any random non-occasion can be tricky. Tuesdays and mornings and midnights. Tests and trips and endless to-do lists. Anything that reminds us of the passage of time.

And then there is the news cycle.

Last week I stumbled across this quote, from the last speech prolific advice-giver Kurt Vonnegut penned, delivered posthumously by his son. It’s been running through my mind e…