One thing I enjoy about reading slush?

Getting to see how many voices are out there - and how many different stories people are trying to tell.

If you're working on fiction right now? Heck yes. Well done, you.

I have no idea if there'll be a market for what you're working on.

I don't know if you'll find your readers in time.

But at bare minimum, you owe it to *yourselves* to tell the stories burning up a hole inside you.

There's always joy to be found in that creative glow.

#CoSoWriters

Slush reading now, then dealing with that dishonest operator I mentioned this morning.

My volunteer gigs are good, grounding parts of my life, but it's just bad timing, to have to deal with some deeper stuff in one during my transition weekend.

Tempests in teapots while the world burns, mi gente. 🙃

Oh, but hot dog!

My first new paid subscriber since the announcement.

Okay, that's a good feeling.

(Pressure, but good pressure!)

Quick walk, then a final review of tomorrow's opener for the new schedule, so I can get cracking on the next two pieces, and set myself up for a smooth transition between venues.

I know a lot of folks here are "en la lucha", too - fighting low income, housing crises, medical issues, profound job stressors, heartbreak...

May you never feel alone in the struggle.

Okay, here's a wee one today.

For my last pieces, which we need for the final "Best of the Week" mailout along with the Big Goodbye, I didn't want to stick to any one small news item, so I've reflected on a few recent markers of our polycrisis, and what we can do to ground ourselves in the face of our Herculean challenges.

We cannot change everything.

But everything we *can* change comes first from taking stock of where we stand, close to home.

https://onlysky.media/mclark/waiting-on-the-world-how-we-get-by-daily-in-a-polycrisis/

As much I'm worried about next steps, I'm also relieved in two ways:

1) Fuller control over what I write. That's always nice.

And

2) Less need to worry about people only trying to get to know me because they see me as "connected". After I was first published in Analog, & Clarksworld, there were waves of people interested not in my work but my perceived access - and the same was true at OnlySky.

Now, when I have zero perceived access, is when the circle of superficials will thin out nicely. 👌🏻

Meanwhile, this remains closer to my style of anthem.

"And the names and faces of the tyrants change
But poverty, pain and murder remains
And the voices of truth are locked up in chains
Darkness remains, freedom in flames

But I’ll go not gently into the night
Rage against the dying of the light
Sing a song about this terrible sight
Rage until the lightning strikes
Go not gently, go not gently, go not gently
And rage with me" ✊

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/bcsCc2kKMUo

Not my usual jam, but 100% appropriate for what I've written this morning. (Post up soon, I think.)

"They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could
Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it"

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/oBIxScJ5rlY

All right. Back to work.

Everyone good? How are your hearts today?

Are we all remembering to signalboost #MutualAid needs for fellow CoSonauts, and otherwise share when we're struggling? 👀

Also, there was a local group gearing up for a party day via "chiva", a traditional fun bus first used for farmers going to market in rural spaces, and now also used for folks looking to sing and get drunk on day-trips. And... I'm guessing that's why this one has Americana on it, instead of the usual religious iconography; the driver probably thought this would appeal to his primary audience - though today he's got a whack of paisas instead of gringos. 🙃

Volunteer tasks this morning left a bad taste in my mouth (not everyone is an honest broker, alas), but now it's time to shake it off with a run, and try to get a few pieces finished today. I had All The Things started yesterday, but I definitely need to settle and focus on one task at a time now.

Bird by bird, as Anne Lamott says. 👍🏻

I really need to thank all of you.

A couple years ago, I was so nervous because I finally had a chance at a platform, however small. Next week I'll reflect more about that roller coaster, but at the time I was still in the miserable waters of a social media space with a superficial sense of success & community.

I don't think I would've borne up as well to this latest setback if I hadn't met so many folks who know how to be real together.

So thank you, CoSo--for your messiness, and your chill.

And people wonder why I write sci-fi. 🙃

#YallAreAliensToMe
#AndIToYou

Each of us is a bundle of habituated biochemical reactions that cannot see outside its own processing loop. We respond to new inputs based on past experiences - and every single one of us has a different mess of them.

As such, we often genuinely talk past one another - without meaning to, and without meaning to do each other harm. Some simply cannot grok much of anything that threatens a core belief.

It's honestly astonishing that we manage to communicate as well as we do at all, sometimes.

Every now and then I see the mental blocks some people put up unconsciously, when they've preemptively decided they're going to disagree with new data.

Today someone mentally blocked out every identifying marker in a video I'd shared with them, so they could claim they didn't know who was in the interview.

But there was no *conscious* intent to their actions. Some deeper part blocked them from being able to recognize the interviewee clearly labelled all throughout.

Fascinating and disturbing.

🙋 Can someone put me in touch with the musicians who kept on playing on the Titanic? Maybe they'll have tips for workflow. 🙃