Back when I was a full-time journalist, I had an amazing editor who always knew what to do when a story got stuck. Whenever I hit a roadblock – problems finding the answer to a key question, or a thicket of conflicting information, or something else that blew up the entire premise of a story – this editor’s solution was radical transparency. In moments of stuckness, instead of continuing to bash away, he told me to basically unzip my skin suit and bare my confusion to the reader.

“It’s never a bad choice to explain why it’s so hard to answer a question,” he’d say. People understand that some subjects are complicated. But what my editor understood was that if you can show people why a subject is so complicated, it adds a lot of value for the reader. In fact, sometimes it illuminates way more than running yourself ragged trying to answer the original question.

Here’s the thing: my goal in most of my journalism has been to help people see the signal in the noise. My greatest satisfaction as a reporter lies in showing readers the patterns and meaning in the messy facts, and the upstream causes of the big problems they face. I also love helping people solve the way these problems show up in their own lives.

Right now, it feels super hard to connect the dots on what’s happening, even for myself. Just look at this list of the changes and cuts to American public health that have happened since January. It’s pure chaos. There are so many dots that instead of wanting to connect them, I just want to hide from them.

What’s more, when I’m wharrgarbling such a firehose of bullshit, it’s really hard to see the solutions. It’s much more appealing to just tune it out, or to flee. (Wharrgarbl.)

This stunned inaction is, by the way, exactly what this administration wants from me and anyone else with a voice. When Steve Bannon explained in 2019 the plan to flood the zone, to maximize muzzle velocity, his stated goal was to create a sense of overwhelm in the media specifically. It does not feel great to be playing the exact victim role chosen for me.

These aren’t the only reasons I haven’t written anything. There’s also my perfectionism and my fear of making mistakes, plus some other facets of my disastrous personality etc. etc. But the main reason I’m having trouble making anything right now is that I’ve responded to this year’s change and destruction with hopelessness and paralysis. When I feel as helpless as I do right now, it’s hard to know what will feel helpful to other people. It’s a tough spot from which to create.

I’m not totally sure how to get unstuck. But one thing that might help is hearing from you about what you want to hear from me.

So I’m asking — begging, even — for you to tell me: What do you want to read here?

There are a few ways for you to answer this question:

• email me at [email protected]

• fill out this form

• comment on this post

Building whatever I do next based on what you, my community, wants to read/hear/see from me feels like the best way to ensure I’m doing something that feels useful. Moreover, it feels like the only way to get through my own bullshit right now.

What are you waiting for?