The article header on the sidebar reads, “Which Celebrity shared her sexy tattoo in an instagram snap?” below the promoted stories scroll from “Anna Faris: Blonde Bombshell to TV’s hottest mom,” to the “Most Revealing Red Carpet Looks of All Time” to an AARP offering of “Playboy Bunnies: Then and Now.” The article itself bringing forth all of this smut and distraction is a NY Daily news post about the competency of the 911 system. Smut, lust, and longing all wrapped insecurity like a Nathan’s bun. I should be at least slightly surprised by this. Surprise is the bi-product of expectation and I should not expect discussions of security to be wound tight with sex in a rag like the NY Daily News. Hell, maybe I should. Therein lies the problem.

I’m tired.

I feel like the more I learn and understand about the way the world works, the worse I feel about moving through it every day. I don’t even know that much. As my good friend is fond of pointing out, ‘You know nothing, talislegger.’ Indeed, I can fit my worldly knowledge into a keyhole, but it still pops open the door to disappointment. The issue is that very little is genuine. Because our part of the world, at least, is driven by this idea of gaining wealth and being heard about the din of the billions, we exist in a structure where the loudest, brightest, and most compelling message is heard. We are reduced to birds eyeing for the brightest feathers. Hell, one news station even uses a peacock as it’s symbol. We paint pretty graphics and disturbing tones onto news that deserves a far more nuanced approach and in that we trigger the reptilian brain and reptilian fears of the average consumer. I have dozens of students who can speak to nothing better than they can speak to their fear and misinformed viewpoints about Ebola. To hear it from a college freshman, Ebola is spreading through the world rapidly and will be in Arizona within weeks–if it isn’t already here–and Obama should have done more to stop it. As if the Office of the President is responsible for failures at a Texas hospital. Wait, isn’t this all the fault of Obamacare? Or, as many have suggested, this is the fault of Obama himself for not better protecting the Mexican border and allowing ISIS terrorists laden with Ebola to cross over and infect our innocent women and children. I’m being hyperbolic, but only slightly. That part about the women and children wasn’t explicit.

The truth is, I am worn down on reality. This is part of why I gravitate to fiction so readily. Fiction provides the space to study these real problems and craft solutions that, in my magical world, can be played out to their eventual success or failure. Both happen in my stories, but not in the real world. In the real world there can be no such thing as failure.