Sometimes I think about all that we've endured and survived, and it takes my breath away.

Because it's never survived by all of us, is it?

We're the planes that made it home from war, riddled with bullet holes on less-essential parts.

We say to ourselves, look how resilient we were!

As if everyone cut down just wasn't resilient enough.

We're not still here because we're any better than the people we've lost.

But we *are* here, facing the next test, and the next.

And that has to be enough.

(I know we're still a month off from the two-year anniversary of Russia's invasion, but it's all just hitting me very, very hard today, how much this world of ours is committed to compounding hardship with more hardship. Active cruelty and callous indifference aren't the sum total of all that we can do in this life - but they are terrifically *loud* parts of the human experience all the same.)

@MLClark

I had a similar 'moment' regarding the October massacre and ensuing tomfuckery, a few days back. Status-quo is objectively heinous.

@BosmangBeratna

It 100% is.

Keeping up with the latest is still part of my daily routine, but I've never had a problem watching the latest footage of atrocity; the real heartbreak always comes from the way it's spun.

So many of us aren't able to see *people* right now--just data that either work for our narrative or against it. Elevate what serves. Ignore or deny the rest. This is pure gamification--and so long as it's our register, we're stuck.

We can't go forward until we're human again.

@MLClark

Maybe the target can be slightly *less human.* If anything, our (individual and species'-wide) Isolation comes from our perceived uniqueness.

I think human needs redefining. At the very least, we can lift the veneer of the present facade, though it's admittedly humbling shitwork. Maybe we all need a dose of humility.

If that's the metric though, for change, there's a lot on the line. Such a gamble seems pretty human to me. 💜

@BosmangBeratna

Solid point about the dangers of exceptionalism.

I've been chewing over a piece about the "end of expertise" - probably going to be a newsletter by week's end - and the only thing holding me back on it is the difficulty of imagining what comes next. How do we get to that world of greater humility, where we aren't such easy prey to appeals to in-group exceptionalism?

Where we just realize how fragile life is for all of us, and do everything we can to make it a little less so?

@MLClark if human history is anything to mark the future pages for, it'll be the unwitting, agency-less contingent paying the express price, paving the way, and seeing none of the benefits.

All in the name of progress. All for the sake of Our Betters. IMO, that's the 'hump.' A lie believed so thoroughly believed, it'll tempt almost anyone. It sounds reductive, but that's how I compartmentalize 'it.'