Camped Out at Nearby Starbucks, Studying and Writing

It's a little difficult to maneuver myself through each day without the outside news and opinion world encroaching on my attention and my increasing sense of unease at the way things are going down.  Still, here I am, relatively healthy while undergoing greatly appreciated high-level medical treatment that is apparently coming in a timely manner.  While warned about possible side effects of yesterday's hormone therapy injection, I was also advised to be active and go about my business as before.  So that I am doing, sitting here in my closest Starbucks drinking a hot cinnamon dolce latte while studying foreign languages and writing this article.  The day stretches ahead of me, and so does a planned neighborhood walk later on.  This evening they're holding the second "grief care" support group meeting at Trinity UMC...not certain as to whether I'll be attending or not.  One thing is for sure: I have little patience to just sit there and tolerate others with their high-handed self-glorifying speechifying.  Speaking of putting up with people putting up their own walls in front of me, it all reminds me of the frustration I fell into a few years ago when I got more deeply into Facebook and made several friend requests of former classmates.  Many accepted and many simply ignored the requests...so be it.  I've later discovered that the wisdom that's supposed to come later in life and temper people's outlook on themselves, their role in society and their political leanings usually comes slowly, if at all.  I sometimes read how some of my "friends" react to a provocative posting and see that folks have a defensive instinct to instantly respond in a knee-jerk, "offended" manner to viewpoints they disagree with, as if reading a contrary opinion somehow poses a physical threat to them.  After the recent horrible assassination of a young conservative voice, the trolls came out on this social media site in force, causing me to wonder whether I shouldn't just shut down my account permanently.  I used to post links to this blog on it for years, but in early 2021 I decided that the often idiotic negative trolling I'd get...usually from a tiny number of old Nova High School classmates...made the whole exercise and effort unworthy.  So I post my articles independently of Facebook and tend to avoid activity there. And what do you know, the company's algorithms have decided what my interests are and load up my news feed with posts reflecting their conclusions: lots and lots of stuff about the Beatles, especially John Lennon...