I used to make mention here of friends I had who supported Donald Trump and how we were able to discuss our differences in a friendly, non-hostile manner. It has occurred to me the last few months that I no longer have such friends, either because they've converted or because they simply don't talk to me any longer.
I don't miss those discussions. What I do miss is being able to talk with certain people who agree with me about Trump but we talk about topics other than Trump. Whatever he is — and you may think he's not who or what I think he is — he sure is hard to ignore.
Put simply: I need more time in my life when I'm not thinking about this man, reading about him, talking about him…and I need more control over when I'm doing those things. I can't pretend like he doesn't exist because I do believe he's harming my country and the people in it but I need to compartmentalize better. Compartmentalization is something I used to be better when I was younger. I could deal with some important matter from 10 AM to 10:30, then put it completely aside and never give it another thought until I'd finished a script or accomplish something else I needed to accomplish.
It's an ability I think a writer needs to have in order to have a career. Whether what you write is wonderful or terrible, it's of no value to anyone unless you get it done. I think I've made mention here in the past of writers I know who were always late with their work and always had a good, seemingly valid explanation of how that lateness was someone else's fault. If you wanna make a decent living as a writer, you have to learn to not let all — let's say "most" — of those external forces interfere.
I was going to offer some tips here about how to do this but I realized, much to my horror, that I don't have any. You just kinda have to overcome such intrusions by sheer determination. You'd think that after 56 years of doing this for a living, I'd have better advice than that but no. Sorry. I don't. I tried not answering the phone but then I sat here and instead of writing, I just worried about the consequences of not taking that call, the one I just let go to Voicemail, only sometimes it didn't. I tried getting out of town but then I worried about some possible crisis back home and about getting back there if/when I had to. I tried telling friends of mine not to call me…
…and then one time, a close friend had a genuine, time-sensitive emergency that I could have solved quickly and completely if they'd called. But I'd asked them not to call me and they didn't and…well, I felt terrible about that.
I finally realized — and I'm offering this to you at the same time I'm reminding myself — that you just have to say or think, "I'm not letting this distract me from accomplishing what I need to accomplish!" I am not going to allow each day's daily Trump outrages stop me from doing what I need to do. And come to think of it, I do have one tip: If you let him prevent you from finishing that script, filling out those forms, taking your car in for servicing, going to the market, taking out the trash, writing that letter, paying those bills, doing your exercises, reading that thing you have to read, whatever it is…
…it's not him preventing you from getting things done. It's you. You're the one who has to fix that.