To mark the Solstice and the week, we turned off the news in the conference room. No panels, no crawls, no updates from the wider human derailment.

Instead, we wandered into the seasonal video entertainment we’d been ignoring while waiting for Santa—this one with the stout beared fellow improbably trapped in an AI-generated psychic globe of energy at the North Pole, requiring a father, a son, and Dwayne Johnson to wake up and save Christmas. We are prepared for any contingency as Thursday approaches!

From there, action comic-dramas terminated at the network there was an unplanned but classic visit to a Packers–Bears game. It was full of the old Black-and-Blue Division collisions and grudges we remember from Detroit days long ago growing up with those teams and the Lions. Watching felt almost comforting in the familiarity of the P.

At one point we put on a show about the ruins of Las Vegas and, for a moment, honestly thought it was a documentary about atomic destruction. It took a beat or two to realize it was just Western Civilization, paused and abandoned, minus the mushroom cloud.

The confusion felt appropriate as we welcome the fusion of entertainment, technology and the power of change. It was a useful afternoon. We hadn’t taken a real break in months. The noise, the motion, the uncomplicated action—none of it meant anything in the long term, and that was the point. Seasonal fun. Permission to exhale.

At the solstice, the darkness reaches its limit. Nothing changes all at once—but from here on, the light knows which way it’s going. We at Socotra House are going to follow along with the growing light and the brilliance of Love. In order to do so, we may lay off the News.

Copyright 2025 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com