All right, loves. 🕊️

While writing recent war explainers, I was aching for a chance to reflect more directly on #GlobalHumanism:

What it means as a philosophy.

How it champions both our individuality and our shared humanity against anything that would divide us to do us harm.

Identity is a key part of the human experience. But wherever one's identity requires harm done to another person, our species always suffers for it.

Who are we really, and what do we truly "owe"?
https://onlysky.media/mclark/the-struggle-for-our-shared-humanity/

If anyone else is struggling to remember to eat these days, please consider this a friendly reminder to eat something today.

I promise, the world will keep burning while you're nourishing your ever-catastrophizing noggin.

(You can even put on an audio broadcast while you're cooking or prepping, if you're not 100% convinced!)

Good morning to everyone managing in strange and unconscionable times. 🕊️

(And yes, if you're still kicking, you're managing. You are. That's all anyone can ever ask for.)

A lot of academics subscribed to my newsletter this week, so I figured this was as good an opportunity as any to write a piece encouraging them to see past the forms of writing most do within niche disciplines, to think about how they can help curate better content in terrible times like these.

To that end, this piece also addresses Israel-Gaza disinformation in news media - but I mark the section clearly enough that you can skip ahead if you're heavy with war trauma. 🕊️

https://mlclark.substack.com/p/academic-writing-in-a-wounded-world

This is the silliest gripe in the world, but I get *so* grumpy when violin or cello shows up in my writing music playlists.

Not because I don't like it!

I *love* violin and cello.

The moment such a piece comes on while I'm typing away, my brain ridiculously thinks "How am I supposed to work under these conditions?"

"These conditions" being that I am moved to bits. I simply cannot write at the same time.

Violin and cello are for pure pleasure. *Later*. After prose.

That is all. 🙃
#AmWriting

That said, good morning to everyone, whether you come from white trash or not. 🤗 I promise, the world is bigger than any garbage views people even in your circles cling to because they can think of no other way to feel big and tough and important but to root from their phones and keyboards for violence. It may not feel like it, on this very stupid timeline we inhabit, but it *is* there: a whole slew of people working for a better, kinder world instead.

Somewhere.

🕊☕️

Behind any "inspiring" posts here, I have a freaking tankie in the family.

And it makes me *furious*, the shit he believes because online habits have radicalized him, allowing him to feel righteous while gamifying nightmare.

I focus on de-radicalization when I'm calm enough. I aim to disrupt the rejection cycle that entrenches ID for extremist religious & political views alike.

Am I ashamed I have to do this with family? 110%. But this crap is *everywhere*.

We need constant vigilance online.

Now granted, we're not doing badly, compared to some sites.

But they're all woven together, all that clickbait and leaping to judgment yielding further violence, and this radioactivity is going to hurt some of us more than others.

In other words, hurt here isn't 100% avoidable, because the *real* world, the world outside these screens, is hurting all the time.

Trauma is going to manifest here when it manifests elsewhere.

And *oh* is it ever manifesting elsewhere.

So tread lightly.

Be kind.

As I noted in a recent piece, antisemitism is on the rise globally and in the US; even the Pentagon is doing an internal review, so the likelihood of some deployed to the ME being white supremacist themselves isn't nil.

On the other side, it's normal to be shocked to hear someone else feels unsafe. "Among us?! What did someone say?!"

But it doesn't have to be explicit. It usually isn't. When real-world trauma becomes internet debate for others, it's *all* radioactive. Taking space is survival.

🤦 I often say this to other writers, and then I still go all shocked-Pikachu when I "rediscover" it myself:

You *have to* walk away from a manuscript when you think it stinks. Maybe it does! Or maybe it's bad brain worms.

Today I've been working through the first 30k of the novel, and although I've been tweaking as I go... the bones are good! I can work with bones this good. 🙂

(🤞 More after two classes.)

I'm spending the afternoon on the novel.

Tomorrow, though, I'll be tackling the pain of current events differently: writing on the unjust pressure placed on individuals to be impeccably informed representatives of complex demographics.

And I've been working on another explainer, for after this week's first newsletter. Possibly a two-parter, pre- & post-Oslo Accords (just trying to figure out what will be relevant re: contested treaties & laws, & possible steps forward).

Lots to do! #AmWriting

I finally let go of a Patreon post I'd been writing for weeks. Did you know that even seasoned writers can get collywobbles when posting excerpts of a new-to-them writing form?

Apparently true in this writer's case! But now Patrons have access to excerpts from a draft in progress: an anti-memoir meant to interrogate assumptions in the form. It's up! No takebacks now.

(Also: @A_Jay_Adler's Substack has been *such* a help in mentally framing this project. Thank you, Jay!)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/on-memory-anti-91216541

Something else came up yesterday that's worth sitting with going forward:

Your other struggles matter, too.

If you've got brain or other health stuff.
If you're pressed to pay rent or struggling at work.
If you're at wits' end with family, or a partner.
If you've lost a pet or your pet is sick.
If you're reaching a key date or turning point in your life...

It all still matters.

The violence of war flattens what makes us individuals.

Hold on to your life story.

That's part of peacework too.

Today there are two very big tasks for us:

1) Continue to be careful about what we disseminate, because there are still uncertainties, & past disinformation has paved the way for deep disbelief. Such is the risk whenever anyone plays with propaganda: it's no longer about truth so much as powderkegs and matches.

And...

2) Fight disillusionment. It can numb us to accepting facts when they emerge. We can't afford to be angry the world is full of bad data. We must wade through it calmly instead.

Oh my hearts.

We're still here at the end of the world, huh?

🫂

Good morning.

Any day on this side of the green, no matter how fraught, always is.

I was 15 on 9/11. That night the news suggested Canadians all go outside with a candle to connect with neighbours, & to affirm our common humanity after so horrific a day.

I did, but no one else on my street went out, & my family wasn't really the "bond in hard times" sort.

So I sat alone on the front step with my candle, and I thought about all the other people who also couldn't see anyone out on their blocks.

I hoped they wouldn't lose hope in our common humanity.

I hoped I wouldn't, too.

Okay, I'm pacing furiously.

I am taking my notebook to the mall to write by hand, and turning internet off for the next while on my phone.

Let grief be grief, mi gente.

And hydrate.