Heading out to try to get work done at a different location.

Time to be around people. Talk to a tree. Praise a pollinator. Make someone on the way laugh at the ridiculousness that is me.

Be well, CoSo. Breathe out. Hydrate. Do good crimes. ❤️

I didn't sleep so well last night.

I realized that this year I've lost all clear sense of a dream to pursue. So much has gone wrong these last few years.

There's a quiet in my heart where a lot of goals once sat.

Mind you, it's a lot less painful then when I had to leave academia.

But it's a dangerous thing to live without direction or hope.

Nevertheless, this is the land I'm walking in for now. (The world is, too!) The aim is to tread carefully, and see what arises in the new terrain.

Good morning, CoSo. ☕

We're alive. Most of us with secure roofs over our head, the means to eat and address medical concerns, clean water, fuel, and electricity, and our health (more or less) if not our sanity.

What a hellish week.

May it fortify us in our kindness--because there's still so much table to extend to our full family of human beings.

Start where you can. ☕

Be gentle with yourself as you go. 🕊️

#CoSoFilms

Tonight I'm popping on... uh... a horror classic? Well, debatable. 🙃

It has an IMDb score of 3.8, but I still have fond recollections of my first time watching it.

(Yes, fond: This series is decidedly more quaint for an atheist. I even watched the first alone in the dark at 13 but it all felt very silly to me. Loved the patient, suspense-filled storytelling structure, though!)

Here we go!

EXORCIST 2: ̶E̶L̶E̶C̶T̶R̶I̶C̶ ̶B̶O̶O̶G̶A̶L̶O̶O̶ The Heretic! 🎉

Night, CoSo!

We didn't do too badly this week, though, did we, CoSo?

We hurt, we spiralled, we snapped, we went down obsessive research holes, we blocked and muted...

But mostly we held true to our humanity, no?

We held space for as long as we could in hard cases, & gave grace for stumbles along the way.

This is one hell of a fine crew.

However it comes, I'd be honoured to split a table at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe with all of you.

(I just hope they have waffles! Er. Pancakes! Or both!)

This week has been very long.

@AkomoCombine

Solution to what? Are we switching topics?

The original conversation was about Israel, PA, and respective adherence to international law. Both Israel and PA are party to different aspects of international law. Israel doesn't agree with certain facets. PA can't sign up fully to others.

Ergo the quagmire.

There's no "winner" here. Only survivors, hopefully.

Which means there will be pain felt by civilians, against international standards, for a long while yet.

@TheresaVermont

@A_Jay_Adler

The full piece is another excellent reflection on the work of trying to piece our lives together, when the person writing the memoir is necessarily living outside the times they're revising. How do we pull together threads of our past selves that are strangers to us now? #Essays #Memoir #Literature

https://innerlifecollaborative.substack.com/p/mary-mccarthys-curious-confession

@A_Jay_Adler's latest on Substack, a meditation on the life, work, and times of Mary McCarthy, had a cute line about Norman Mailer, who was never plagued by "the hobgoblin of consistency".

I keep thinking about what other creatures (supernatural or real) would best embody other attributes. What's the perfect embodiment of bashfulness? Pettiness? Vanity?

I've got a few in mind already:

"The church mouse of self-doubt"
"The mayfly of fame"
"The bonobo queen of nitpicking"

What've you got? 👀

This should go without saying, but conversations about naming traditions can easily distract us from the most important factor right now: keeping civilians safe.

Mind you, I'm very happy to put my silly academic training to use if folks have other research questions in the course of this active trauma.

But please let's not let semantics guide the conversation about human dignity and the right to life.

All this chatter online is mere whistling in the dark, knowing how little else we can do. 🕊️

I've been fielding questions about names.

A loaded topic. It's important, though, to remember that the word Palestinian is an English transliteration of فلسطين (filastin), which has been confused with the English word Philistine (which like Barbarian became a negative term for cultural outsiders). It has a history among Arabs, in migrant groups, & in Russian writings on Zionism, dating back to the late 1800s. I've uploaded an academic paper if anyone wants to read more.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-uX6sW5qrx3py6uUqvqDGwv4ZugMWMrG/view

And as always...

Hug your loved ones.

Thank your lucky stars you're safe.

See about donating to a local food bank or similar organization of choice, if you have anything to spare.

Lean into the good that also exists in this terrible world.

Disconnect from online noise as often as you can.

Cultivate gratitude for the helpers.

Remember that these days will end... and that we can still decide the shape of those to come.

Quick #War warning:

The evacuation underway is *not* going to include everyone, but not everyone is staying because of ideology.

Yes, some believe Hamas when it says this is a 2nd "Nakba".

But 1.1 million people include many that the UN is sheltering in place, and everyone in hospitals who cannot be easily transported, along with their medics.

You *will* hear of more civilian casualties when the ground assault begins.

Because war is brutal.
Not because everyone who stayed "had it coming".

New Tinariwen song just dropped. 🙂

For me, music like this is a gentle reminder that there exists a human ache through time and space to belong, to rest, and to find joy amid hardship. Maybe we'll never get there. Maybe we'll die before our communities' struggles end.

But while we're here, for however long we get to be, we are part of that grand ache for something better... & sometimes just belonging to that kinship of fellow-feeling will have to be enough.

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/Didha3RXObI

All right. This is a long one, but necessary. 🕊️

It covers normal human behaviour and cognitive bias that war trauma and propaganda quickly exacerbates.

It looks at histories of collective punishment and the complexity of breaking from cycles of violence.

And it looks at the failure of international systems to provide the moral weight necessary to protect civilian rights.

Oh, and I talk about the Book of Judges.

Y'know. As a "treat".

#War #GlobalHumanism #History

https://onlysky.media/mclark/moral-war-a-contradiction-of-terms/

Okay. Article finished, but now I'm going for a walk before checking the latest news and if needed revising accordingly.

(I think I'm still waiting/hoping for one big change in particular.)

As with the last on this war, it'll be big picture. Histories and approaches to international law that should completely disrupt how we think about our (in)ability to respond effectively and ethically to atrocity.

But as with the last, the news is still unfolding.

So a walk first, then class.
Then I post.

Sitting this morning with all the death.

I'll finish a piece soon, but for now I'm reflecting on the human instinct to rush to rationalize everything.

If someone says X people died, there are many who leap to comparison or deflection, like it's a competition.

(Probably, because they've been living with gamified death tolls for a long, long time.)

But it *is* possible just to sit with the fact that X number of people aren't with us anymore.

Full stop.

We are a long way from a kinder world.