2026-07-24

You Become What You Spend Your Time On

First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
First They Came by Martin Niemöller1 (translated from German)

The ominous something that I talked about in my first2 blog post has come back with a venegeance and it has me ever-worried about the future.

I'm reminded of the poem First They Camequote. I am only in the place I am today because of priveledge, but priveledge has a sour aftertaste. Who am I? Why would I deserve anything that I have while others in the world are left with far less?

I'm also thinking about today's episode of Humans3 in which Vicky Holmes4 talks about fear being a negative emotion, but also how fear is an opportunity to show courage.

The evolution of the internet and technology has instilled Orwellian5 fear into us whereby we're afraid to speak out. Someone is always watching. Anything you post can and will be used against you. Being pro-human (ALL humans) has somehow become both anti-government and anti-corporation.

I didn't speak out, and I see them coming for me in the distance. I still don't speak out because the fear runs deep. Because our voices have been made small by algorithms and by the destruction of community, whereby we don't know our neighbors and have been fed rhetoric that we're all at odds.


I spent a lot of my day researching worries that returned worrying results. I struggled to begin writing at all, apparently preferring the doom served to me by the tiny light box, going so far as to get distracted by more doom after opening my page to write.

Then I remembered something that I read recently (I really wish I could remember where) about how we become what we spend our time on, so I framed my searches more positively. "xyz success stories" returns more hope than "Should I be worried about xyz?"

Good news stories aren't posted as often and don't get views (as discussed in last week's Humans episode6 with Andy Weir7). It's easy to complain, and hard to share gratitude. This means the doom is overestimated. Or, at least I hope it does. Otherwise, I'm doomed.


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