Quick #CoSoRocks note:

I feel safer in places where I know people will provide respectful correction when necessary.

There are many places online where people don't feel safe to present correctives or counters, lest they be seen as attacking or 'splaining. (& one always has to keep an eye out for 'splaining, 'tis true.)

But a space where dissent is not automatically toxic is a space in which we can all safely grow.

I make plenty of errors.

I love that they'll be more readily caught here. ❤️

Two hours of novel time?

Don't~ mind~ if~ I~ do~!

Woo! It's live. 🎉

Today for #OnlySky: the "socialisms" piece I mentioned.

This isn't just a list of different definitions of the term.

I wanted to write an explainer to help readers understand bigger questions about work, political life, personal relations, & the road to societal reform that many have tried to answer (differently!) under an umbrella term more often used as a scare tactic.

Can we ever have a more mature conversation about how to build a better world?

https://onlysky.media/mclark/get-to-know-your-socialisms/

For #StarTrekDay:

It might surprise you to know that one of TNG's most famous episodes drives linguists up the wall, because the whole premise of "Darmok" is that this one species is uniquely reference-driven in their speech. In reality, *most* languages rely heavily on cultural context. It shouldn't have been a shock to anyone.

(But it's still a good episode. 😊)

Let's give it a try, though: Can you Darmok-ify recent news or culture in a way anyone who lived through it would understand?

How are you celebrating? 👀

Guess what day it is! 😊🖖🏻

#StarTrekDay

Ooooo, there are such happy vibes on CoSo this early Friday morning. 😅 Did someone remember to spike the water cooler with joy? Because it shows!

Off to the park to send overdue voice messages with a bit of birdsong in the background. G'morning, lovely critters!

CoSo!

What're you jamming to right now?

It's a muggy night with a nice breeze and a quiet highway.

I have one last editing task before bed, but I'd love to pop on some tunes while I work.

No specific recs needed. Just--
What's playing on your end?

🙃 One of those working stints where you sit down and don't look up until eight hours later, only to realize it's gotten dark...

And then kind of stagger upright because bodies aren't supposed to be in one position like that for so long (or longer! Looking at you, software engineering nutjobs!).

Time for a walk!

Okay, 8 minutes past time to get back to work. ☕

Have a lovely one, CoSo!

Oh typos. Keeping me humble. 🙃

Hope everyone has a decent day & is super gentle with themselves.

There is so much hurt in our world--& we can't fix or even try to address it all.

So build up your reserves on the days when there's no clear path to change.

& tread lightly with others.

Porque nadie sabe lo que está pasadando en la vida de otra persona.

No one truly knows what anyone else is going through.

But we will surely wound each other further, if we're not careful with our own wounds.

Also: I cannot fully describe the rest and joy I feel when I run into trans folk in my building. Most paisas are *very* much live & let live - which doesn't mean that trans folk don't endure prejudice & abuse, but does mean that I'm not living in an everyday culture of politically amplified anti-trans rhetoric like... ah... some batshit states of hate I could name. 🙃 My home always feels so much safer after I've had a nice chat with some of many my beautiful neighbours across the rainbow. ❤️💜

Man, you folks are simply the best.

🍵 💛

Going to finish that socialisms piece and an editing job, and then I am going to bed for a super early walk in the park.

Thank you for your presence with such rough news. 💙

Take care of your hearts and your noggins.

And hug your loved ones if they're close. I *might* have sent a message to my brother, whom I cared for in a deeply parentified relationship, because he came first to mind at this child's death today.

Otherwise, all my huggables are a long way off.

Hug 'em if you got 'em!

🕊️ This time, I'm coping by writing something for OnlySky.

This piece isn't on death, exactly; it's on how urgently the need for humanism burns in a world where we cannot hang around waiting for miracles... even if that means routinely having to face the harder outcomes, the times when all our efforts fail to bring about a better end.

The world is hard enough.
We survive it... a little longer than we might have otherwise... by knowing when to give.

#Humanism #Death
https://onlysky.media/mclark/never-waiting-for-the-miracle/

The other shoe has dropped.

I held off on sharing that Patreon post because the saga was still going. Surgery for the little one, to try to repair the paralysis caused by lingering infection from his pneumonia in January.

He didn't pull through.

Too much strain on his 5-year-old body.

César has had a hell of a year. A father's nightmare: to fight & fight still ultimately lose all his children.

The boy's name was Maximiliano.

Thank you to everyone who helped me do what we could in January.

I really do love the challenge of writing political theory in plain-speak, and I *think* this "socialisms" primer is coming along, but it's also going to be a beast of a piece. 🙃

Going for a wee pace.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the disheartening reminder, in Murray Bookchin's "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" (1964), that we've been fighting the destruction of better ecologies for DECADES with full awareness of the problem's scale. Just not the capacity for change. :/

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lewis-herber-murray-bookchin-ecology-and-revolutionary-thought