Sometimes, the shared public moment is all about not being about what's most important. Sometimes, the shared public talks is a hiding and an escape.

Even if the issue being discussed is important in itself, it is, at these times, being used as a silencing device, a noise to fill the silence around what we should be dealing with that we're not.

At those times it's better to not line up with other people like you on the people like you team, saying things people like you say about the noisy issue.

It's better to hold onto your head. Shut out the pressure of right here, right now. Look at an ancient classic, or silly ephemera from seventy years ago. Unhypnotize yourself and be quietly open to knowing what's under all this hoohah.

Just knowing that is good, knowing what thing that matters is being mass distracted from.

Quiet sanity counts at times of noisy group insanity. But once you know, you might even come up with some way to move on the real thing, helpfully.