For as long as people lived href="https://nudgestories.com/glossary/catastrophe-the/" target="glossary">pre-catastrophe, physical health was prioritized over any other type of health care. Our physical ailments were always given priority over our mental and emotional well-being, no matter how they were intertwined. Less than two decades before the catastrophe, mental health care was not prioritized and certainly not readily available in much of the world. (1)

Unless someone was declared a clear and present danger to themselves or those around them, it was up to each of us to decide when to seek help, and we mostly didn't. Not many people were ready to admit to experiencing mental weakness. There was a stigma about asking for help with thoughts and feelings, which kept many from even acknowledging the possibility in themselves.

It's common to share our feelings and emotions; it's what makes us human, but when even slightly traumatic experiences continue unceasingly, a well of emotions simmers beneath our external facade, and the most natural response, when it bubbles over, is to simply erupt. We feel better afterward, releasing the venom from our bodies and sending it to where we believe it is most deserved. But what of the harm we also inflict upon ourselves with every eruption?

The years before the Catastrophe showed a clear trend of many people, on all sides of all issues, becoming addicted to anger and vitriol. While examples of the worst forms of this were most evident in the conservative media ecosystem, the dopamine-dumping antics were also apparent in the clickbait of their more liberal counterparts. We might not have acknowledged it as such, but it was just as easy to stir those like Ehren up as it would have been someone on the other side of the political spectrum. Has it ever been in humanity's best interest to simply hand over the ability to rule to the side feeding the most dopamine to our addictions? And yet there they were on the surface, doing precisely that. (2)

I remember as a child hating my history classes, the sheer repetition, repeating the same action points, year after year. Nothing was engaging about these stories, merely data to be memorized and spewed later. I also hated how the education I was given treated history as simply those action points over the centuries. What of the lines connecting them? What situations in the past mimic those in our present? My recollection of history was being taught about the influencers and victors, rarely the influenced or victims and never those who, simply by existing, drove the changes around us. It always felt as if these classes were taught in a vacuum, with little regard for weaving the stories told into the context of society as embodied in ordinary people.

I hated history class, and yet I loved historical fiction. The nuances of thought and emotion, even if only from the immersion and thoughts of a writer who knew their subject, shed a dim light on the historical choices of at least the prominent characters of history. Being able to speak comfortably with someone about my past is a gift in itself, and I chose again to embrace the experience. Having Louis spin my smallest recollections into something readable while weaving them into the larger web made this gift all the sweeter.

We deem ordinary people's stories and day-to-day existence dull, with little regard for highlighting those whose choices ultimately move society in one direction or another. I believe otherwise and am glad for these tales where the small choices are celebrated.