Just a meditative newsletter today - and I'll have another light one for paid subscribers tomorrow.

This one reflects on the recent seasons of our world, and how easy it is to forget all the lessons we've supposedly learned from one year to the next.

It's no easy thing, living in the moment in a way that expands to include our past and future changes... but it might be a great comfort to us, when bracing ourselves for what might feel like the end of things right now.

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/in-medias-res-the-story-of-us-from

Up late doing some pretty depressing research.

Human beings can do such wonderful things.

We have created so much that improves life for all.

And yet... we also have *such* a history of doing harm, then rationalizing the harm we do with claims to upholding "sacred" traditions.

The history of things done to feminized bodies is truly the stuff of nightmares.

We've come a long way out of superstition in a *very* brief period of time.

And we're always closer to backsliding than we might think.

I'm driving myself nuts waiting for medication to kick in. What're you reading / watching right now?

If I finish tonight's work in time, I'm going to put on 1966's The Idol. How about you?

#CoSoFilms

One of our superpowers as a species is truly the ability to be interested in just about anything.

You name it.

There's at least one of us weirdos who is All Over It.

I meant to share this chuckle earlier.

Today's El Colombiano had photos of snow from Europe. Everyone who passed by ooh'd and aah'd from today's sunny 30°C. ¡Muy bacano! Qué rico! Quiero ir a Europa!

😁 So just remember, folks snowed in and aching for sun: you are currently the envy of people in the city of eternal spring, who have maybe never experienced the thrill of even your nose hairs freezing in a bracing wind, or of shovelling the walk for the third time today. LIVING THE DREAM, BABY! 💫

Now he's just sharing where his faith gives him comfort, which is all good. He's certainly not going to make a convert out of me, but he's going away with a little less of a sense that other people having different beliefs is a threat to his own.

(#Humanism FTW!)

We 8 billion celebrate what's good in life through different names and cultural traditions... but at our core, we bleed & ache & wonder & love from the same fragile base.

I just wish that we more often remembered what unites us. 2/2

I have the cutest little update about that Evangelical who came out of the woodwork the other night. :)

Like I said, I suspected he was a touch lonely - and unused to conversing with people on my "side" - but when I gently pointed out that the long info-dumps make it difficult to have a real conversation, while highlighting and thanking him for what little personal commentary he'd slipped between massive chunks of apologetics... he responded well! Explained his thoughts in his own terms. 1/2

Morning folks! 🌎

Today for OnlySky, I contrast three recent migrant crises in the news - in Canada, in the UK, and in Texas - to reflect on the economic and environmental factors that keep getting lost in the panic around rising immigration.

Immigration *is* a serious issue, which is why we cannot afford to let xenophobes and political stunts dominate the conversation. We need to grapple with our countries' underlying failure to invest in better societies all around.
https://onlysky.media/mclark/whats-behind-the-migrant-crises-in-canada-the-uk-and-texas/

I did the thing where I listen to the sociopath podcast (a finance pod that talks about economics as if there's money to be made in the world burning), and now I'm just stewing, because Big Oil is so slippery. It has *such* plans to stay in power until the last possible moment.

And... so much of legacy media has zero interest in asking the most important questions. 🙃

Honestly, I don't know if any of us is truly sane, living under this reality.

But I appreciate your brands of crazy very much.

My phone can't capture this time of day well, but it's like the whole sky is mineralized, all the moisture in the air catching and refracting light as if the full vista is made up of tiny crystals, each one refracting a hazy gold, warm and wonderful, whichever way you look.

So--just passing on lovely vibes for all my friends in winter. 💛 Walkies before more write-ies now. As always, I'll tell a tree or bee about you. 🤗

Just wrapping up a news brief on three migration crises, but since I'm not covering Davos I want to celebrate this perfect opener to a CNN article about that awful convention, which could use a little KSR treatment (from Ministry for the Future).

*chef's kiss*

I'm not sharing to boast, but to reflect.

The commenter is correct: I have *very* few comments on my most thorough pieces.

And this makes me a liability in media.

Writers become popular by creating content that can be sensationally reposted. It should take a simple, ideally incendiary position so that commenters can easily counter or fill in the gaps.

I'm no use to advertisers.

Which is why I'm thankful to be growing the newsletter: because our clickbait economy just makes everything worse.