My first journalism job was long ago, covering events at my high school for the local paper. Writing this column is the second. I’ve been at it since last April, and that first anniversary has put me in a reflective mood.

Last year, I worried about coming up with a topic. I have five published novels, which made me more anxious, not less. When I finished each of them, I had to figure out what topic was compelling enough to keep me engrossed for a year or more of writing the next book. Given the months that took, how was I going to come up with a topic for a column every seven days?

I needn’t have worried. It turns out there’s a big difference between coming up with 80,000 words a year and 800 words a week. For better and mostly for worse, I am flooded with column ideas. My notes and thoughts for future columns are stored on a document that runs over 30 pages! I will not run short of topics so long as any of these things continue:

— Politicians shedding principles for the sake of reelection

— Schools neglecting their educational mission

— Vladimir Putin yearning to rebuild the Russian Empire through conquest

— Americans declining to stand against overseas aggression

— Lawless, would-be authoritarians seeking the White House

— Voters wishing to “make America great again” by returning to a world with more poverty, more racism, more sexism, more illiteracy, less equality and shorter lifespans

— Terrorists committing unspeakable atrocities

— Elected representatives responding to mass shootings with nothing more than prayers

— People despoiling the Earth’s land, sea and air

— Individuals living without adequate food, housing or health care

— Nonwhite, nonmale and non-Christian citizens being denied equal protection

— Supreme Court justices flouting the Constitution

— Whiners complaining about the state of the country but failing to vote

— So-called conservatives failing to support democracy

— So-called progressives closing their ears to any policy offered by opponents, while opening them to any antisemitism offered by allies

Given this list, which could be longer, I’ve been surprised to discover that writing the column is good for my mental health. I am not happy with the state of the planet, as you might have gathered from the daunting inventory above. Just reading papers and websites all day would only make me more despondent. The act of writing a draft column one day each week and a final draft the next day helps keep my brain from exploding with anger and frustration. I’m venting on a regular schedule.

In the mornings of the other five days of the week, I can work on a novel. Then I’m lost in a fictional world where I control what happens. Unsurprisingly, I have set the book I am currently finishing up in a different era. It’s good to escape the here and now, or at least to try to. The problem is that when writing about 1960s America, so many of the issues are the same, and so many of the political speeches could have been given last week. Sometimes I think we humans are “captive on the carousel of time” as Joni Mitchell, the troubadour of those times, sang in 1966’s “The Circle Game.”

Still, even while despairing about the state of the world, I see I am a lucky man. I have my family and friends. I devour great books, watch terrific movies and stare at breathtaking art. I live during the school year on a college campus where undergraduates give me hope for the future.

Thank you. Onward and upward to another year.