Long Haul

 It has been two weeks since Hamas attacked Israel and Israel began pounding Gaza. I have been to three protests in that time, two in London and one at the university. After yesterday's protest, it struck me that this is going to be a long haul and also that I am going to be in it for the long haul. As a single, able-bodied person with no caring responsibilities the choice to step up is an easy one. Unless I have any pressing commitments over the weekend (and I usually don't) I am going to take the coach to London to protest. I am going to try not to schedule stuff on protest days. Just showing up to be counted as one of the hundreds of thousands feels like one of the few antidotes to perpetual hopelessness and despair. But, I also realise that if I am going to be in it for the long haul, I am going to have to integrate it into my life better. Spend less time doom-scrolling on Twitter and more time doing something productive for the Palestinian cause or for myself. Its not like I dropped everything in the past two weeks. Its the middle of the teaching semester, and I have also managed to keep up with exercise and trail running. But the situation in Palestine has occupied most of my waking thoughts, which is not good for my mental well-being. There is also the matter of improving my job prospects by trying to get papers published and then finding a job. There is no point in beating myself up over the time I have already wasted in the past two weeks. Everything about the last two evenings has been precedented--the attack, the retaliation, the mobilization in response to the retaliation. But I need to get used to the extraordinariness of this topic and stop giving it so much headspace. Try to publish some papers or find a job, both for my personal and professional sakes..