This is the kind of reason I love to see religious communities in the news.

The extreme right thinks they have a lock on leveraging Christianity to their prosperity-gospel, Christ-as-upholder-of-hierarchies-of-men political ends (which has Biblical backing, alack)... but there are other ways to act upon one's faith, and this one--along with the church cancelling medical debt--is brilliant.

I hope to see more such efforts in the struggle for decency!

#ReligiousHumanism

https://apnews.com/article/california-nonprofit-homeless-penalized-623279cb218414d6ca04caa317c3a2b7

Man, your day really takes a turn when an elderly man on the street grips your hand hard and uses the back of it to wipe tears from his eyes because you've treated him like a human being. It is... very hard to focus on the little grievances and sorrows when so starkly reminded of how touch- and basic-decency-deprived so many of us are.

(Hug your loved ones. Laugh & cry with your neighbours. And be kind with yourselves.)

Callooh callay! 🎉
It's #BookClub day!

Today for #OnlySky, we deep-dive into Chapters 1 & 2 of The Dawn of Everything, looking at the construction of political philosophy around Western anxieties formed by exposure to Amerindian critiques of European life. Big ideas below!

Have you read this book?
If not, the summary I provide should still offer plenty of food for thought. ⬇️

#Humanism #History #Philosophy #Books #CoSoBooks
https://onlysky.media/mclark/humanist-book-club-when-philosophy-is-mistaken-for-field-research/

Good morning to everyone, but especially everyone who had a Simon and Garfunkel-esque night of talking to an old friend. 💙

Whatever crept up on you on the dark, may you be gentle with yourself, too, in the light.

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/nkUOACGtGfA

*sneaking* suspicion, from all the delicious rolling thunder and crackling lightning, that this wasn't a great time for a walk. (But it's going to be a great night for a storm~!)

Today I dusted off an MS I'd put aside to settle, only to discover that for some reason I'd told the story two ways (first-person accounts vs. omniscient third-person). Hugely different priorities in each, & a major choice to be made as to which I'd polish & send out.

I *think* I've made the right choice, but... I'll take my pre-class walk before sending it out.

(It's about an alien graveyard & the many cynical ways humans might react to alien thanatology. Bonus LLM commentary, too. What fun!)

All right. Joy posting and coffee break over. Back to it!

#AmWriting

(But thanks for sharing #BookJoy with me, all! What a wealth of recs and fantastic reading experiences.)

Was thinking of you while revisiting this section in The Wretched of the Earth today, @BosmangBeratna. *That's* the project. That's the project at the messy heart of it all.

"To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsibility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too ... that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people."

-Frantz Fanon

I should be clear: the person in question said that the book was compellingly written. It just wasn't the space opera they were thinking it would be, despite my express caution about its voice.

And that is OKAY. This is all a good reminder to keep fine-tuning how I present the work to others, going forward.

All feedback can be useful!

😂 I got my next negative review from a friend today, disappointed the book wasn't *really* space opera - which I take to mean, because it's not all epic battles - despite involving aliens, a murdered world, a mutiny, a spaceship, and an intrigue that will unravel a whole society.

But I find it amusing that all my reminders that this is Dostoevsky in space didn't sink in. I think folks don't expect me to write challenging work - but I cannot fathom why anyone thinks I write nice, simple fiction.

Relatedly, Behind the Bastards this week is on Jack Welch, and Part 2 is an *excellent* reminder that our current workplace / economic woes were made, not naturally occurring.

(Part 1 has solid parts related to how "welfare capitalism" used to be something that companies like General Electric celebrated, earning employee loyalty through a genuine investment in them - but you can also dive right into Part 2 to learn about the rise of modern toxic workplaces.)

#Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/part-two-jack-welch-is-why-you-got-laid-off/id1373812661

I often wonder at the human capacity to be *so* down on oneself while inundated by so much evidence of what actual cruelty looks like.

To agonize over personal failure & guilt in a world where "success" is so often bestowed on people responsible for the most reprehensible acts...

We're all such messy critters.

But gentling despair at our messiness is crucial - because it gives us more space to tackle the ruins all around.

So try not to forget, eh?

Kindness with ourselves is activism, too.

Morning, CoSo! 💫

Tuesday's newsletter resonated with enough people that I decided to share a BookTube follow-up to its frank shoptalk about (self-)publishing.

Here I talk budgets, expectations, reviews, & the role of anxiety for writers *anywhere* in the system.

Be kind to yourselves in the creative process, eh? The writing industry is wild. 👾

#Writers #WritersOfCoSo #WritingCommunity #SFF #Publishing #Indie #IndiePublishing
https://youtu.be/csnunEoRJ7k

Be gentle with yourselves tonight, lovelies.

The world is filled with legitimate cause for outrage, but our energies are finite.

We need them not just for reacting to sites of injustice today, but also for building a better world ahead.

Rest up. Hydrate. And... well... 🙃