@Jorro @Tacitus_Kilgore @th3j35t3r

I'm the kind of person who apologizes to cockroaches & fruitflies for killing them (I even praise them, if big enough, for having lived impressively long for their species first!).

But when TFG got sick early in the pandemic, I found myself wishing that he just wouldn't get better. I've never wished death on anyone before--not even people who've assaulted me!

I just wanted the whole spectacle to stop. It's an ugly feeling, Jorro. You're not alone with it. 🫂

@preclude

That makes sense. No need to answer this if you're not comfortable, but do the images invoke a fuller range of sensory responses for you too?

I ask because there are certain smells that come very much to mind when I view images of this type, and I suspect you might have an even wider range of sensory experiences to draw upon.

I'm glad to know that the current range of modalities for PTSD helped you, either way.

A mild form of pulse therapy was very useful for me.

@preclude

That's interesting, thank you.

PTSD is also a part of my mental health profile, but dissociation has always been a much more prominent characteristic of mine.

I infer from your comment that you feel you can and do remember every visual of violence you encounter? They don't run together? You don't lose track of specific examples?

I don't mean to bombard with questions, so much as to process your own, different experience. Thanks for sharing.

The hardest part of seeing new photos of children blown to bits is that I always think the image will be seared into memory... and some definitely are.

But not all.

You can sit with these photos for as long as you want, & try to remember them all, but the mind doesn't work that way.

There's just more depravity in this world than any of us can recall. One horror nudges the last out of sight, & even as you look at it, you know there'll be another soon to knock it out in turn.

@Blue_Skyesr_here @Museek

You have so many reasons to be proud of your country. :)

It's not easy! There's lots of work to be done!

But Colombia is so, so ambitious in the way a lot of other countries need to be right now. 💪

@Museek

Oh my goodness, no worries about circling back.

Are you taking care of yourself?

Do you have the resources you need to rest and recover your strength any time soon?

I hope you do, and can!

Wellness above all else. 💙 May your communities know a little more peace in the coming days.

@NiveusLepus

Thanks, Becca! I appreciate this encouragement over the baby steps. I'm going to strive for a wee run tomorrow, with thanks to you for the good cheer all along the wobbly way back to full health.

I hope your hectic week on the bounce is faring well, and that you're taking good care of yourself where you can! 🤗

@Tacitus_Kilgore

As a person who recognizes their own depression as "ego dialled to 11", I hear that. Sometimes the one thing we need to hear most is that there's a world outside the nightmare in our heads, eh?

Doesn't mean the nightmare inside our head sucks any less!

But it helps sometimes to remember that there are things beyond the nightmare, too. 🫂 Glad I can be that nuisance reminder for you sometimes!

Your presence certainly helps in my ego-consumed depressive spells, too.

@Tacitus_Kilgore

You too, Tacitus. 💛 I love that you are honest and open and sincerely striving. I've never seen a post from you where you weren't. As markers of a life well and truly lived go, one really can't do much better than that.

🤗🕊️

@Tacitus_Kilgore

Some of my favourite stories are about the mess of those final chapters: the weight of so much failure, pain, & exhaustion from starting over and over and over again.

I wish it were easy for humans to shake off the weight of unfair expectations and material limitations from our ridiculous cultures.

But they cling to the better stuff of our natures whether we want them to or not, eh?

Go easy on your meat-sack, eh?

The anger is legitimate.

It's also never the whole of us. 🫂

I have half an hour before the zumba class downstairs and the band practice across the street end, and I can hear myself think again so I can get one more writing stint in today.

I've been chewing over the next book I'll write, once I have enough stories in queues again.

It's looking more likely that the next work won't be SFF at all. I have an historical idea that I just can't shake - but hey! Maybe that'll work in today's weird market after all.

SF stories first, though.
Must! Fill! Queues!

@Tacitus_Kilgore

You're reminding me of the writer Robert Walser, who also had Days Like That. :)

"In the dark year of 1933, after a reorganisation at Waldau, Walser was committed, against his will, to the clinic at Herisau, where Seelig first visited him in 1936 and encouraged him to resume his interrupted career. ‘I’m not here to write,’ Walser told Seelig firmly. ‘I’m here to be mad.’"

You got through today.

That's what matters most.

@ShaneArtBooks @cmskiera

Chokepoint Capitalism is so good, and so necessary! I'm glad to see it's still being read and spread widely.

(If you're anything like me while reading it, don't forget to take breaks from fuming! It's empowering, but so much of what's plainly stated in it is deeply frustrating first.)

#CoSoBooks

@tgraph52

Bonus points if your eye twitched at the grammatical error in this message, too. 😉

@Blue_Skyesr_here, you might enjoy this overview - challenges and all! - of how Colombia is trying to tackle some really tough climate issues through economic and energy reforms.

@Museek, as I mentioned earlier, you might find the Colombian government's latest decree in favour of Indigenous sovereignty to be of note here. There's a particular focus in recent legislation on empowering local leaders to set and enforce regulations that protect natural resources in their regions from further abuse.

Evening, folks!

Today we have some constructive policy for once, care of recent Colombian state-driven climate activism!

And yet, it wouldn't be "Tough Times Tuesday" if I didn't raise these examples without looking at the challenges that come with trying to move away from an extraction-based economy and toward models of greater civic empowerment.

Nothing good and necessary in life comes easily, eh?

#ClimateCrisis #IndigenousRights #Environment #Economics #Colombia

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/colombias-latest-lessons-in-state

@ceorl

Now I want "Sisyphus" as a rock opera.

@elmaxx

Hey Maxx, it's been a minute since your last post. You doin' okay? Still vibin'?

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

#Meme #Humour