I’ve been sad lately. I can’t open Twitter without seeing how fucked up the world is. There’s pain everywhere, and hardship, and heartbreak, and it feels like the entire planet is burning.
There’s a lot of jokes going around about how 2016 should be canceled, and I think it’s because people are all seeing more shit than they ever wanted to. It’s hard to watch, it’s hard to fathom, and it’s hard to escape. The pain is tangible and everywhere.
Someone said to me the other day, it’s not that the world is any worse than it used to be, it’s just that now we can live stream it. Now, we’re so much more aware of how awful things can be.
That’s a good thing — it’s good to be forced to come face to face with problems that would have been a distant thought a few years ago. It’s good that I’m thinking about the difficulties that other people have. But it’s also jarring.
I was lying in bed the other night, thinking about everything, and I couldn’t help saying to myself that I was tired of living on this planet.
I needed to have something that would shake me out of the nosedive, and remind me that the world isn’t totally screwed.
And that ended up being Pokemon Go. Because there’s just something about millions of humans catching imaginary creatures and adding a little magic to their lives, that makes me smile.
I found myself searching for the little creatures myself, reading articles about other people having the time of their lives, and joining in with those millions to all play one game together.
It was nice, really. It was nice to have something that could unite people on such a simple, small level — play.
It made me think about when I was a kid, when it didn’t matter to me what the other kids looked like, or where they came from, all that mattered was whether or not they wanted to play. Kids are simple like that, and it was awesome for a little while, to see that adults could be that way, too.
It’s good to see technology being used in that way, too. Being used to brighten the world instead of just share its messiness.
Ultimately, the world is still messed up out there, when I put my phone down and give Pokemon a break. Ultimately, the pain hasn’t gone away, and there are a great many people who are still aching. Distracting myself from what they feel isn’t a good thing — but I needed it, for a little while.
I needed to keep my head above water, because I know I’m not good to anyone if I’m so depressed by the state of this big blue rock that I can’t function. But I also needed a little bit of hope. And hope was what Pokemon Go gave me. It’s nice to see humanity in a different light, where we’re not all trying to fuck each other up.
I think it’s important to try and break away from the roughness and find something to have joy in. We all want to fix the world, but there are parts of it that are going to take another 100 years to make any progress with, and if we don’t find something to smile about, we’ll falter.