Some things I’ve been thinking about lately

Aeryn and Londo, probably plotting against me or judging me. Maybe both.

This post isn’t going to be my usual musings or a list of things to watch or any of the other usual stuff I write. It’s about consolidation. I have been thinking about a lot of things lately and it’s preventing me from getting done the deeper things I want to do. I figured I’d fire off some of the things bouncing around in my brain which I’m not sure I want to flesh out into full posts of their own.

I grew up in an era of reading the newspaper and being informed, in general, about the world. I can no longer tolerate it. I know folks without trauma are struggling with this as well. For me, whenever someone in the current administration speaks, it’s disparaging another person. Much of what they say are things I heard growing up. I’ve worked hard to put some of that past me, but when I hear it all the time – and it doesn’t matter who it’s directed at – those memories come flooding back in. If you’ve read even a portion of my posts, you know my history and can understand why anything related to the Epstein Files is so activating for me. I needed someone yesterday to tell me it is okay to walk away for a while. I can’t, mentally, be in this fight right now. The hardest part is that I feel like I’m not being a kind or responsible person by walking away, but I need to do this because it is breaking me. I know this is what those in power want, but if I’m broken I can’t ever get back into the fray.

I want to be the reason someone believes in good people and I had to process the above paragraph to understand that none of it changes who I am. I don’t care about my résumé. I know I write well. I write what I want and try to make my little corners on the internet better places. When I’m gone, no one will give a single fuck about that résumé or my awards. They will remember how I made them feel. I read a quote on Reddit a few weeks ago. “Kindness is about who I am, not who they are.” I don’t want others to feel like I did growing up, how I still sometimes. I want to live in a kind world. I am kind because it is in my nature and it’s the world in which I want to live.

Ultimately, time will erase me. Someone 100 years from now will read my byline on a news article, but who I am will no longer exist. What matters more than anything else is the kindness. Kindness will get passed on and I don’t need the credit for starting it.

Never stop learning. Read. Maintain your vocabulary. Fix shit. Build LEGOs. Learn Linux. Try a new recipe.

Build LEGOs and have fun.

I miss the old internet where I could say, “hey, come chat with me on ISCABBS or Brinta BBS or on IRC.” I had a Geocities site, then gereth.net (it’s still up), and then this website. I’m not owned by corporate filth. I’m never going to make money here. It’s just me pounding on a keyboard thoughts in my head. Not only is all of that okay, it’s beautiful.

Again, someone else online said it better than me and I forgot to grab the link to it.

It’s hard to put in to words how different this made everything feel.

The internet used to feel like a dimly lit forest you could freely explore and get lost in. Sure sometimes you’d stumble somewhere dark, but the forest felt mysterious and large and a little bit magical.

Now it feels like your in Times Square surrounded by advertisements and too many people yelling out their political opinion.

Even though I tried to limit being online, I noticed my attention span starting to wane. I started reading 15 minutes a day. Some days it’s more, but that is the floor, not the ceiling of what I read. I don’t have an answer for everyone, but a short attention span reduces the ability to tolerate complexities. It’s why we want things done now or “done yesterday.”

We have lost our ability to be bored. When you have nothing to do, don’t pull out your cell phone. Sit. Think. Converse. Stare off into the distance. Be. Fucking. Bored. How can you discover who you are and what you want if you’re constantly craving attention from others? Sit alone with yourself. Your life doesn’t need to be filled with screens. The world is raising a generation now that has never been alone with their own thoughts. We don’t talk about the long-term consequences of that. I can’t even begin to explain the joy I get from playing with my great-nephew and the incredibly stupid games he comes up with, especially the one about being a zombie and the exact way I’m supposed to “kill” him. Except I missed. So now I need to try again before he eats me. Or calls me silly. Or both.

I don’t look sick, but I am chronically ill. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, and all that.

I did not remember “if it’s brown lay down; if it’s black fight back; if it’s white goodnight,” that time with the bear in New York. I was picking blueberries. The bear sat next to me and picked blueberries. It did not have a bucket, so ate them right away. I slowly walked away. These internet comments are good recommendations as well.

So if you ever come face to face with a polar bear you should just thank God for the time that you were allowed on this planet.

Your best bet is to start throwing off large articles of clothing or bags and sprint towards appropriate shelter, the bear might stop to investigate if it was something edible that you dropped. If you’re not within sprinting distance of shelter then just keep your stuff on, die warm.

I’ve heard you’re supposed to lie down and pretend to be dead, because it will be good practice for the next 5 minutes when you will actually be dead.

We did not learn a thing from 9/11. We are going to be taught the lesson again. I live near missile silos. Personally, I learned from 9/11. I don’t want to be collateral damage because of stupid people’s refusal to learn.

I’m getting older and sometimes forget what I did yesterday. However, I clearly remember, “Honeycomb’s big, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s not small, no, no, no…” You’re welcome for the frustrating earworm.

The only way to enforce a trans sports ban is to check the genitals of little girls. The pedophiles in charge are gleefully clapping at this policy.

Shrinkflation and enshittification are working together and against us now. Thank you corporations for making your junk food taste like shit and raising the prices while making your items small. It was easy to stop making purchases.

I never left the high seas. It’s cheaper there.

If it responds to “pspsps,” it is legally a house cat. I don’t make the rules. Also, if said cat is on your lap, you cannot get up.

Londo won’t let me get up to pee. Aeryn blocks my computer screen so I can’t sail the high seas.

They kidnapped Maduro and assassinated Khamenei before they arrested a single Epstein pedophile.

Always remember to listen to someone. If they are going through something rough. Listen. Did the rough thing leave a mark? Listen. Complaining about “first world problems?” Listen. Talking about something deeper or serious? Listen. Never minimize someone’s concerns or pretend they aren’t valid. Yes, there are limits, but you also don’t have to always fix things. Just listen. Learn to sit with that discomfort and listen. “If they want to scream into a bucket of ice cream – ask what size spoon they want.”

Holding space for someone is practicing kindness. It costs you nothing while providing a huge gift to someone else. Sometimes silence is the conversation. Hold space. Listen. Be uncomfortable. Be kind.

I always fear the missed typo.

“Boots on the ground” is an insane proposition. Send ICE boots if you must, but only those.

If I die and find out there is a god, first I’m going to punch that motherfucker in the face. Second, I will still not want anything to do with it.

I have a bet about the Ides of March. I think I’m going to lose it.

We float on a rock mostly covered with water which goes around a nuclear fusion reactor on the edge of a tiny galaxy in an infinitesimally larger universe and we still refuse to work together. We prefer to actively destroy ourselves. Maybe we should let it all burn down to make way for new growth.

Republicans cry about Sharia law, but they are working hard to implement their own christian version.

Nebraska is nice. It is not always kind. It has become difficult for me to be kind to the nice people.

Saturday, 15th July 1944
It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

Anne Frank was right. We just need to keep fighting however we can, even if that means walking away from current events for a while.

Be kind to each other, folks. It’s all we have left now.