There's a person in SFF who shot to fame in recent years... before they were ready for it. We've been friends through that rise, but privately; I've been their first point of contact in many crises, and walked them through their many missteps along the way. I neither condemn nor praise unduly, and we always talk about the challenge of being famous for messy reasons. I always knew the rush to fame would hurt them. They weren't ready for it. They also had no other choice once the momentum started.

Humanist stuff:

My aunt believes the Rapture will happen in the next three years, and reports that she's always looking up.

There are many who mock such beliefs, but we all have the same basic biochem. We just put different words to our habituated convictions.

So when my aunt tells me she thinks the world is about to end? I can't help but reflect on my own sinking feelings for the world at war, in climate change: all of it.

Instead of judging others, the task is to curb defeatism in oneself.

Brains are truly odd meaning makers.

I woke this morning convinced one of my nephews had died. Carry-over, obviously, from the death of a little one I'd tried to help this year. But it genuinely took a good 10 minutes to remember that my nephew wasn't dead.

The weight of the world can sit so strangely upon us. We process so much so weirdly.

Go gentle into your own strange days.
Tread lightly with those around you.

You're here. You're still here.

The rest will follow, given time. 🫂

Good gravy. End of September.

Well that kinda snuck up, didn't it?

I have so much to wrap up in October. This has been a year more of putting out what I already have rather than producing new work - & anything involving personal life has felt like touching a live wire emotionally in the process.

The novel won't be finished in October, but the audiobook, I can do. We shall see what happens next.

Happy start of spooky season, all. 👻 May your skeletons in the closet at least help pay the bills.

Two more classes, then maybe a movie. 🤞

What's everyone watching tonight?

Evening CoSo. 🕊️

Today's newsletter talks about my final miniseries of Global Humanist Shoptalk, Season 2. It covers personal & global crises that inform my interest in migration & mobility rights.

Our world is shaped by cruel & arbitrary forces, but knowledge isn’t enough to turn the tide. We have to ease human precarity before we can cultivate the agency to make better choices.

Messy critters that we are, though, do we have it in us to reach for that courage, & grace?
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/will-we-ever-be-ready-to-think-globally

Not saying this for pity: just for insight into how things work when everything's super tight in the budget.

Fridge has been off since May.
Great savings on energy!

Today I've had *such* a craving for a sandwich, but if I buy the constituent parts some come in packs that require refrigeration. (I mean, unless I eat all the cheese in one go... 👀)

So I'm passing on it. NBD.

But if things are tight for you too, honour the fact that precarity is a mental energy suck.

& give yourself some grace.

As you might've noticed, Means Morning is still pulling here from mainstream reports: the Fed study, Bloomberg's write-up. It's simply offering a more express reminder that this is not a game of hypotheticals, a balancing act between abstract economic levers.

It's real life, for real people.

US friends: you're cash-strapped in large part because of systemic pressures.

And those pressures are driving many to bad politics.

Be gentle with yourselves.

This isn't your fault.

You are *enough*. 💛

Today's lefty news broadcast (I listen to mainstream financial ones, too; it makes for a striking contrast) has tough stats in relation to the ending US childcare credit program, & general state of US savings, which is worse than pre-pandemic for 40%:

"New study out of the Fed found that only the top 20% of the country has extra savings left from those pandemic programs. [From Bloomberg] ... the total amount of excess savings will likely vanish in this current quarter."

https://pca.st/episode/164dfccb-db71-4a75-a07c-69fae4f3884f

#Poetry break.

W.H. Auden, "Musée des Beaux Artes": a classic reminder that life contains multitudes - one grieving while another celebrates, and another still laments the boredom of the day.

Man, the internet becomes so much easier to navigate once you realize that others aren't always commenting to be in dialogue.

I know this irks some! "Why is X commenting just to repeat what I said? Does X think I don't know that?"

But for many, a post is an invitation to free associate. An excuse to share an anecdote, affirm comprehension by echoing the lesson, or go off on a tangent.

Either way, it's not your problem unless you make it personal.

Mute/block/nod/move on.
And keep your bliss.