Here's a gratitude game I play with myself.

I pick a modern object and ruminate over how much history went into making it possible. Take this rig: the metal components come from tens of thousands of years of metal-craft. The paints and rubbers come from synthetic versions of natural dyes and fibres that cost hundreds of thousands of lives to industrialize. Then there's the engineering, and the distribution challenges...

We live on the shoulders of so many.
And we take *such* gifts for granted.

It was so lovely this morning to see everyone's greetings to each other here.

Thank you, CoSo, for your conviviality and all-around neighbourliness. 💛 A gift in any era, but especially in so fraught a time as ours.

Final thought tonight--

Don't confuse tone & integrity.

Some folks are strident in their convictions right now. It's how they're moving through this horrible time. All-or-nothing thinking - while a cognitive bias - is 100% normal under duress.

Likewise, though, you're not weak or cowardly if you're moving through this awful time by advocating differently, with care.

Can *you* live with how you're moving through today's traumas?

That's it--strident or not: that's the only test that matters.

Before I came to Colombia, a writer in Ontario once told me I should see a bullfight if they still happen here (they don't).

He'd seen one in Spain, & went on about how moving & spiritual it was, the blood coming thick and ropey, & how it deepened his appreciation for Christ.

I couldn't hide my disgust, which hurt his feelings. To him there was beauty in the slaughter. I would never pay to watch an animal die.

But memories like this make it seem a wonder we have any peace in this life at all.

Dagnabbit, barnacles, and shaving cream--

I *said* this summer that I wasn't going to write any other fiction outside of finishing the Thucydides-in-space novel...

But I drafted a gosh-darned SF story today, when I should've been finishing a newsletter. Like a sneeze. Like it was all wadded up and lodged deep in my brain cavity, and needed one good long honk to splat out. 😠 Well! I guess I'm going to need to edit and submit it soon.

THANKS BRAIN.

WAY TO STAY ON FOPDOODLING TASK THIS WEEKEND.

A quick update from the YouTube channel. If you've also been struggling with how little our cultures of lit and learning have moved the dial on empathy, I see you. You're not alone. #WritingCommunity #WritersOfCoSo

https://youtube.com/shorts/3Hy9zEJAb4k?si=zSbUffH0eeH1iso-

Though I said I was finished with fiction after the novel, the brain sometimes brings me story ideas fully formed. 🙃

Louise Bel-Adair, Who Grew Up Watching Her Other Selves Die

"Only the close ones," says Louise at her junior prom. It is a dreadful time to be talking about this, but the boy had asked, and even as his question broke her heart, because she realized now why he'd invited her at all, she'd decided that she at least wanted to be heard if she was never going to be loved.

#AmWriting

"Your perception system is trash, Todd." :)

#Comics
#Existentialism
#AI
#Bunnies

I'm currently reading a posthumous collection by an editor I worked with for years. I'm part of a group crafting a roundtable review in honour of her life's contributions.

It's a strange thing, though, to read the work of someone as impatient with their own output as you are of your own. I want to chuckle with her over it - but of course, she's gone now.

Only the work remains, and a churning sense of kinship, lost before fully found.

Say the things you need to, to people while they're here. 🕯

I have to say, folks: two types of humanity have come out of the woodwork this past month... & one I understand.

The people too angry to be kind? The people whose hurt makes it impossible to care about the other "side"?

That, I get. It sucks, but it's trauma.

The other type, though...

In my lit circles, I see folk saying "Oh, this horrible thing has happened & I can't believe I *just* published a book/story about it! You can read/buy it here! 🙏"

That type really, really strains my empathy.

On my walk today I heard a street busker play an instrumental version of Despacito on violin, which is the closest my heart has come to laughing in a long, long while, so there is that.

Home again now - and back to work. 👍

Anyway--

Lots of computer time ahead. Two e-books to read and review this weekend, and two newsletter posts to write. Lots of correspondence to catch up on, too.

Going to take a nice long walk first. 🫂🕊

#RandomThoughts

When things get really intense in the world, sometimes our first instincts surge - and they're scary. They're the part of us that battens down the hatches against empathy because there's *surviving* to do. We will group up, look for signs of the enemy everywhere, and say and do and advocate for things we usually wouldn't.

It takes work, every single day, to rise above the worst in our group species.

And humility, to remember that we all have to. None of us is entirely immune.

Cute headline in today's paper:

"Tourism at high risk? 59 [foreigners] dead in Medellín in 3 years"

I follow online forums to keep an eye on what gringos say about Colombia, and what happens to them here.

It's always the same story: Fellow thinks a local woman is clearly interested in him because his bad or non-existent Spanish is just that charming, and ends up dead from an altercation during robbery or overdose from a knockout drug.

Travel carefully. Stay street-smart.
Death is always sad.

Oh, but here's a good tie-in to my article's closer: an update on a key part of the Peace Deal that hasn't been carried out well in Colombia, because the very act of pursuing peace felt like a betrayal to some, who then voted in a right winger who dragged his feet on implementing key parts of the accord.

Instability gives way to more violence, which gives way to more politicians campaigning on a promise to crush it.

Things are changing a bit w/ Petro now, post-pandemic. Paso a paso!

#Colombia

Now I'm off for Spanish crossword time, coffee, and fresh air on an overcast day.

Happy Saturday, all.

Don't start any land wars while I'm gone - or sea wars. 🤔 And you know what? Leave the skies and stars in peace, too.

It's just too much work for a weekend, y'know?