My mom was just here visiting and I was asking her like does the world feel especially like to be a heartbroken place I feel so heartbroken about so many pieces of what's happening right now and especially in the the last months it has been really hard to be able to

hold you know the joy of my child's 10th birthday and and reading the news of the

day and feeling so heartbroken for what's happening.

Welcome to How To, I'm Courtney Martin.

I'm interested in this moment that we're facing in public life. There's something

about the last few months that have felt like getting hit by a semi truck of

devastating news and we really don't know how to respond.

This is the kind of stuff that goes through my head,

maybe it goes through your head.

First of all, if you express sadness over one tragedy,

does it mean you're neglecting another simultaneous one?

And if you repose a reflection from someone on one side of an

issue does that mean you've suddenly like taken sides, full stop. How can you

speak up when truth be told you don't know as much as you'd like to about an issue?

That happens to me a lot and what

about just going through the everyday, you know, functions of life. I find myself trying to

send an email and then I think like, oh, should I put a preamble that says,

the world is burning, but like, can you send me that file you owe me?

I don't know, guys, the overwhelm is real.

We can't tune the world out, which means we need to figure out how the hell to be a person in it

and when I struggle with how to be a person what I do is talk to my friends.

One such friend is Jen Blumer, a teacher, mom of biracial children, and most important for today's conversation, a visual artist who uses her gift as a form of activism.

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