This month should be a doozy. Special Counsel Jack Smith may have additional felony charges in the classified documents case against Donald Trump. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis may soon announce an indictment for Trumpâs effort in Georgia to fraudulently steal the 2020 election. Talk is heating up that Smith may also file charges for the fake elector conspiracy to illegally keep Trump in power.
Did you hear the criminal defendant at the center of all this is the GOPâs leading candidate for presidentâmaybe not despite all of this but because of it? Have you noticed that it takes a lot of energy to maintain sanity while this career criminal, bent on retribution, continues to lie, threaten prosecutors, fuel his cult and otherwise mouth off violently?
Even with all of this swirling aboutâIs there another shoe to drop from the corrupt ideologues at the Supreme Court?âI hope you can imagine it makes sense to take a mental health break to recharge batteries. Thatâs my planâto travel, to see new things, to be a little quietâto ready myself for the coming months and a predictably intense year ahead as another presidential election season heats up.
You can be sure I wonât stop publishing in these weeks while Iâm traveling. If a big story breaks, wherever I am, I expect to post some thoughts. Iâm also planning to share some earlier dispatches that I think are worth revisiting, as well as serve up some new Saturday discussion prompts. Soon, I will be welcoming a veteran journalist and insightful observer of the media and the body politic to contribute several pieces for us (more to come on this). So, too, you might hear from me when Iâm in the same European city as President Biden when heâs meeting NATO allies.
All that said, I hope youâll read and reflect on this post about the potential of and danger of burnout. Honestly, I find it hard to take time offâa common failing among many Americansâbut thereâs little doubt a vacation is critical to sustain this work on America, America for the long haul. That means this year and many years ahead.
Iâm not burned out exactly, at least not the way the professionals talk about it. The World Health Organization details three symptoms: âFeelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from oneâs job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to oneâs job; reduced professional efficacy.â
Yes, I have moments of âenergy depletionâ and feelings of exhaustion. (Who doesnât?) But rather than feeling disconnected or deterred by ânegativism,â which would undermine my ability to write and do my job, I remain tapped in, committed, driven. If I didnât feel this work was necessary or valuable, you can be sure that I wouldnât keep doing it. I suspect you can tell by my writing that I am motivated by passion and a sense of urgency about the state of our country.
And yet.
Itâs good to take a break sometimes. Right? I understand this notion intellectually, but Iâm not very good at practicing it. I know Iâm not alone in this. As I noted nearly a year ago, Americans in 2018 did not use 768 million days of paid time off. Thatâs an awful lot of time that could have been spent kicking back with families or friends, traveling or (God forbid) just not working.
Wouldnât it be great if all those hours could have been handed over to nurses and doctors and delivery drivers and grocery store clerks and other front-line workers whoâve helped us ride out the storm of COVID-19?
But I have noticed in recent weeks that the constant drumbeat of bad news, driven by the feverous pitch of bad actors bent on burning down our houseâby stripping human rights, attempting to overthrow our government, refusing to act after more children are gunned down, remaining silent after yet another racist mass murder, siding with Vladimir Putin, allying with other shameless nationalists and extremists, and shoving our democracy toward the ash heap of historyâhas begun to tire me out.
At least a little. At least enough to notice that, lately, I can be more interested in turning the TV off than in learning one more thing.
Usually, I donât struggle to find something to say. But there have been moments when Iâve wondered whether there really is anything else to say that can break through and make a difference. Is that a form of burnoutâor at least my version of it?
In an excellent cultural history of burnout published earlier this year in The Washington Post, author Jonathan Malesic pointed to a period of âbroken idealismâ in the early 1970s as one explanation for a growing sense of burnout.
Malesic, who recently published the book, The End of Burnout, described a New York psychologist, Herbert Freudenberger, who developed in those same years a list of symptoms to explain the condition. These included, he wrote, ââexhaustion, being unable to shake a lingering cold, suffering from frequent headaches and gastrointestinal disturbances, sleeplessness and shortness of breath,â as well as âquickness to anger,â paranoia, overconfidence, cynicism and isolation.â Fast-forward to a 2021 survey that cited burnout as the top reason people were quitting or changing their jobs.
But letâs linger for a moment on Malesicâs observation that Bob Dylan captured this emerging awareness of burnout in his 1974 song âShelter from the Stormâ from his Blood on the Tracks album. The song includes the line âburned out from exhaustion,â distilling, Malesic notes, âa significant cultural momentâĤwhen burnout as we know it first gained scientific legitimacy and broad public attention.â
Consider also the broader context of the burnout line from Dylan:
I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm
Shelter from the storm. That sounds to me like the antidote to the condition, a chance to take a break from the madness outside, a change of scene, a moment to get warm before returning to the elements.
In the coming weeks, I will be traveling overseas, reveling in a change of venue, recharging my batteries. On several of my stops, I plan to share with you insights from the locals on issues of the day. I may also share some snapshots from my visits (and stop whatever Iâm doing when the January 6 committee televises its hearings to briefly share my thoughts). I also will republish essays from the last year that still feel particularly relevant and worth revisiting.
As always, you, dear reader, and America, America will not drift far from my thoughts. But Iâm pretty darn sure that the time awayâwith a chance to see some different sights, eat some different foods, hear some other languages, discuss some other views far from the madding crowd in Americaâwill go a long way to refresh me for the season ahead. Maybe I will convince a few of you to do the same.
America, America is sustained by paid subscriptions, making it possible to keep nearly all the writing available for everyone. If youâre not already a paid subscriber, I hope youâll consider becoming one.
We cannot tell you how grateful we are for your Substack post this morning. We've been staying off news since June 14 with the exception of our air quality issues and climate change. Each morning we clean out our emails. Many of the emails have gone unread. All of the acrimony in society, the indictments, the fake news, the lies, and the trials are going to continue for many months, if not years. We care about all of this but are completely out of intellectual and emotional energy to face this situation right now. Please enjoy your travels. New adventures, nature, art, and music all heal. You do not even need to know what time it is unless you have a dinner reservation, are meeting old friends, or need to be on time for a train or plane trip. You expressed our feelings so eloquently. We will continue to look for your posts but please be sure to take time off. Thank you.
Dear Steven, Thank you for this deeply meaningful piece at a critical time.