Chad Verrall

I recently think a lot about what @tha_rami and I often talk about, both privately and in tweets: How utterly overwhelming US influence is, no matter where you are. And now I live here and it's just... so much worse than I had ever known? It's like drowning every day.

It has increased my sympathy a little for how self-centered Americans often feel to folks living in other places - I AM currently extremely centered around the US and the happenings here because they are UTTERLY overwhelming every single day all the time.

When I lived in Australia, I would still check German news and be generally aware of other countries and their happenings. Since I moved here, the fatigue in trying to keep up is very real. This place drowns out EVERYTHING with how much noise it makes constantly.

When I had only just moved here, I wrote a couple of times about how just general life maintenance here is extremely demanding, all systems are overwhelming and complicated, even beyond the regular stress of moving countries. The US is unbelievably exhausting.

Living here has hijacked my mental space more than any other place I have ever lived and it has been more demanding in it's request for adaptation than any other place as well. I believe it's because everything here feels utterly existential.