Sometimes I think the mild stalker has given up. But no. Out of the blue, after weeks of peace & quiet, a fresh try at finding me.

The world's a very lonely place.

& it's a strange form of loneliness one feels, when a person refuses to leave you alone. Especially for feminized people, this yields a delicate balancing act around new people. Are they chill? Or will they develop gendered expectations of you that won't go away for months?

🙃 Most of the time it's OK.
It's the edge cases that suck.

Wee news item for my Ontario friends (and Canadians in general): apparently syphilis is back with a vengeance. If you've got kids, nieces, nephews, neighbours, friends in the age range / actively dating, let them know.

With 2.3 million lacking a primary care physician, it's easy to go too long without testing. Stay safe out there!

#Health

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/we-have-a-very-large-problem-why-ontario-is-dealing-with-syphilis-rates-it-hasnt/article_3436f69e-c6a8-11ee-bd88-e34dac0de87a.html

I think most of you know this, but it bears repeating:

I don't come to my more uplifting posts from a place of naïveté.

I have witnessed and experienced terrible things, and I live in a place where peace is an ongoing process in many regions.

I'm surrounded, though, by people who've spent their whole lives holding awfulness in balance with small gratitudes.

And we do something like that here, too, when we make space to hold trauma, *and also kindness*.

It isn't naïveté.
It's how we survive.

The news is ridiculous everywhere.

In #Colombia, a recent round of ceasefires ended, but the headline is misleading. ELN isn't launching a new strike at the government, but at other armed groups. It's accusing Clan del Golfo, a narcotrafficking outfit with delusions of political ends, of being in cahoots with state military. Meanwhile, dissident-FARC group Segunda Marquetalia is still interested in negotiating peace. It's just hard with so many actors.

Never a dull day here, I tell you what! 👌🏻

Morning, Coso.

Hope all you owl nuts have a lovely day. 👌🏻

The other side of Medellín's hardships...

A Canadian tourist fled the country as his landlady discovered the body of his Colombian girlfriend in a suitcase in his apartment. Took a flight to Guatemala, so who knows what'll happen next.

But that's how a lot of locals view solo male Westerners: here to exploit women and children. Anger over events like this fuels indifference to word of lone male tourists dying.

Dura la vuelta, mi gente.
Kindness is a radical act in a world as cruel as ours.

This is a thought-provoking half-hour media conversation between Roy Wood Jr. And Audie Cornish: not only about the direction of comedy, but also about the competing and complex roles of comedy in an era when audiences have changing expectations for the role of satire in journalism... and yet, full-time journalists remain beholden to other standards.

Two very smart people asking the right questions and reading the room well.

#Podcasts

https://pca.st/episode/0e82c0f2-e472-42d4-a4ad-44e831db0ef5

Just finished today's meetings and volunteer work.

I do so love this particular editorial role in my industry.

I used to be nervous about serving as the main facilitator in this group--but honestly? With the whole world demonstrating profound levels of leadership failure in a wide range of key fields these past few years?

My imposter syndrome has been clearing up nicely, TYVM. 🙃

I may still be incompetent!

Probably am, at plenty!

But have you *seen* what passes for "competence" these days?

All right. Time to be useful.

*grumble grumble ☕ grumble*

I feel like @BosmangBeratna might enjoy this, so maybe a few others here will, too.

SRSLY WRONG uses comedic skits and serious, deep-dive conversations to talk about issues of note for utopian thinking. This episode is reflecting on the necessary, if complex role of anger in our pursuit of a better world.

#Podcasts #Humanism
https://srslywrong.com/podcast/304-the-wrong-boys-get-angry/

🙃 Fun week in Medellín. Five tourists dead, one a woman taking psychotropic drugs recreationally, four... most likely connected to a recent trend of robberies on men via seemingly interested local women and drugged drinks.

(The latest is too new to tell for sure, but fits the pattern.)

I'm sure I don't need to tell any of you to use common sense. But I will warn everyone against overconfidence. Listen to the first doubt you have, and question everything, if ever you're travelling solo abroad.

Good night, all you differently struggling humans.

Remember:

You're doing the best you can in the positions you occupy, with all the distinct experiences that've brought you to where you are now.

Nothing that brought you to where you are now is irrelevant. Nor does it mean the end of change going forward.

It's up to us, together, to bring about the eco-social conditions that will allow more of our better natures to thrive.

We'll do the best we can there, too.

And it'll have to be enough. 💙

#Humanism

I often note that climate change is tied to the rise in authoritarianism. Resource scarcity exacerbates conflicts superficially framed around ethnic in- & out-groups. Displacement pressures accelerate border panic & cultural clashes. The scramble for the last oil wealth + prep for the next big extraction industries yields private armies & proxy wars.

Tribalism is rising with temperature.

But not alone.

The push for shared humanity will go on.

Even and especially when it's hard.

I have an elderly neighbour with partial paralysis from stroke.

On my way home, I saw him sitting in distress, and checked in.

Turns out he's going to a mental hospital for 30 days, & was feeling defeated that it had come to this.

We had a good warm chat, which didn't magically fix everything, but left me thankful he shared, & for the chance to sit with a neighbour the way others sit with me.

Remember:

Seeking help does not make you a burden.

It's a gift you give yourself, and others too.

The best part of passing time with this friend is that we can talk for hours about how grim the world is, and hold it all in balance with a good meal and beautiful views and tender news about family and friends. No one rushes to gloss over the awfulness. We just take turns piling up a feast of love around the cruelty in it all. #APerfectDay

(Animal products visible in the photo below.)