Despondent, frustrated, disappointed, dismayed...

It's been a day of deep feeling for me.

Maybe for you, too.

Maybe for reasons that differ from my own.

Goodness knows, we're all over the map here, each caught up in our part of it.

Which is the real work of awful times, no? Scare and divide. Drive us deeper into silos.

My wish for us all:

May we one day feel like we can widen our circles of care again.

May we not be guided forever by all the anger, fear, and cynicism of this rotten age.

Today’s Monday Media Review eases us gently into a new week.

We’re going to revisit some of these themes in heavier ways later on, but for now… let’s just enjoy a nice podcast about pasta, shall we?

#BetterWorldsTheory

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/when-even-simple-histories-get-it

Brain is still like sludge today. Finishing tasks has been hard this past week - everything takes twice or thrice as long - and even yesterday I couldn't get to sleep before 2am, so I was "off" again this morning.

Off for a wee walk to try working off the frayed nerves, and then hopefully I can catch up today on four overdue tasks.

The trick is not being extra despondent for being so behind. Being angry with myself for being depressed won't help me to get ahead in workflow again.

Brains suck.

To be clear:

There's nothing new or shocking in that piece for readers of the publication for the last year, & language like "racists" has been comfortably used by Israelis to talk about some extreme settlers & religionists for a while.

But this was just such a perfect reminder that many Jewish people are entering Passover tomorrow with a VERY complex body of sorrows and suffering.

Hold your fellow human beings in your heart this week, OK?

So many of us are going through terrible ordeals. 🕯️

WHEW.

😂 A little backstory before sharing this link. Haaretz used to be the dominant pub in Israel before Netanyahu's rich buddy bankrolled a daily free pub that could promote Likud talking points, so there is NO LOVE LOST for Netanyahu in this institution of a paper, which hosts POVs across the spectrum but definitely skews left of centre.

You could've guessed that, though, from the title of its lead editorial today:

"Passover in Israel: The Ten Plagues of Netanyahu"

https://archive.ph/LwbTO

Sometimes the urge to correct disinformation is *so* strong.

But it's not always the right time, and people aren't always receptive.

(Sometimes they know they're bending the truth, but pursuing other ends when doing so.)

At those moments, one can "use the tools"...

But a humanist strategy is to learn to sit with and learn from the discomfort of not being able to fix every factually incorrect belief.

We're not always going to share the same convictions.

We *do* have to share the same world.

Quick aside:

We all have subject-positions, and the greatest integrity comes from being upfront about our own.

Here on CoSo, we have folks who are hawkish, folks who are pacifist, & pacifists who own guns. We have spiritual folk, hardcore religionists, & atheists. We have conservatives, liberals, & leftists.

I am firmly secular humanist. My advocacy is always pro-democracy and pro-human agency.

I don't *want* to be everyone's cup of tea.

I want everyone to feel free to steep as they choose.

Nah, that version caught WAY too many noises from kids playing in the footie field and dogs barking at each other.

I'll try again tomorrow. Good practice round, though!

Patreon next.

#War

There's a lot of pain that comes with seeing relentless news of people dying.

That pain is worsened when our countries play very public roles in suffering.

No one should feel ashamed to express dismay at the loss of human life.

No one in a *democracy* should feel they have to shut up about concerns with respect to state actions.

And if people are learning now how complicit we've always been in suffering? Good. That will ideally lead to better praxis in general.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israeli-strikes-southern-gaza-city-rafah-kill-13-109471596

It also seems quiet(er) out, so I'll hazard a recording session in half an hour, once I've gotten myself into a slightly calmer state.

I *do* need a good run, super early in the morning, to purge some of these Big Feels - but for that, I also need to sleep through the night for the first time in weeks, so, we'll see.

One task at a time. 🤞

But after that & a few annoying encounters with people who mistook me for a tourist (something that makes people think I can't speak Spanish, because they're so struck by the vision of the Other, and who thus act like nothing I'm saying makes any sense)...

I breathed out. Had a decent encounter with someone. Then another.

And on my way back, I sat with a street person I know who just wanted to talk about how losing his sight was scaring him.

Paso a paso.
Relearning how to "people" takes time.

my nerves were frayed and I fell back into a way of venting I used to do all the time in Canada, when I was *so* miserable, *so* stuck in my life, & saw no way to fix any of my problems, but also couldn't help being in pseudo-public spaces (for work) where everyone around me "needed" me to fill in a perceived gap in their life. That's the kind of suffocation I've been feeling lately, and to have that old venting behaviour come out around someone *actually* in need filled me with great shame.

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Even going across the street for a bit led to a few interactions that showed how frayed my nerves are right now. It took me no fewer than five interactions to get the last one sort-of right, and I still feel very much unable to "people" well right now.

One thing I hate doing is bringing negative energy to a genuine request from someone on the street. I was hit by such a request 2 blocks from home, by someone who needed just a wee bit more for a vital medication. We went to the pharmacist but

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@Museek! 🥳

Happy birthday to a human who does so much for her communities, and who navigates hurdles that would *not* exist in a more just world. 💛🫂 May you feel surrounded today by love, family, and hope, and may the year ahead present more triumphs than setbacks - for you, and for all the people that your advocacy so powerfully supports.