To my fellow
Dads.

My algorithms have been overwhelmed lately — as has everyone's — with horrific news. I've been careful with my own exposure, for fear I might lose myself in the anger and horror. And I'm watching people, online and in my own life, undergo what I'd call “spontaneous mental combustion.”

We don't see the hours they put into consuming the evil. We only see the explosion. Family members blasting their family in group texts. People howling on social media. People lashing out at strangers.

One of the clearest pictures of what happens inside a man during a crisis is in War of the Worlds — Ray, hiding in a basement with his daughter, the threat closing in. His emotions don't erupt. They drain. Stress hormones surge, the thinking brain goes offline, and what's left is one cold, primal goal: protect.

Psychologists call it emotional flooding. You might hear apathy — “there's nothing I can do about that,” “I can't look at that right now” — but what you're really hearing is a brain holding the line…