Maybe I'm processing

WAO feet with our new socks cc-by Doug Belshaw

Last week was the first WAO off-site since before the pandemic. It's important to see people in real life from time to time, although I must admit I was ill prepared for the reality of our meet up.

Sometimes an era ends, and you didn't realise you were part of the era. Transitions, man. My mind jumps, and I imagine a beat poet working at a gas station. At some point, the transition is complete. Sometimes it takes that long, a year of running the gas station cash register, to realise you're no longer a poet. Sometimes it takes the end to reveal that you're at a new beginning.

I am recognising things in myself that I knew but had forgotten. I am recognising things in others too, and my brain is on hyper mode trying to process. Maybe the processing is just my "being in the world" anxieties subsiding. Or maybe the rediscovery of an incomplete internal transition has unlocked a file cabinet in my head. There's new sorting and cataloging to be done.

We measly humans are huge fans of change.

WAO! We're almost 7 > https://blog.weareopen.coop/wao-were-almost-seven-8921f530284b
Korean philosophy is built upon daily practice of good habits > https://aeon.co/essays/korean-philosophy-is-built-upon-daily-practice-of-good-habits
It’s Time for a New Password Manager > https://blog.passbolt.com/its-time-for-a-new-password-manager-d468202f7d45

Maybe I'm uncertain

Nick Lehr/The Conversation via DALL-E 2, CC BY-SA

"...what are we left with at the end of doubt? It’s tempting to say “knowledge.” And it would be reassuring if doubting were to end where knowledge begins, especially when we see doubt weaponized for reactionary purposes...we could simply offer corrective knowledge" Natasha Lennard

My routines are a mess, despite it being January, a month when I'm usually recommitting. I am uncertain as to which of the directions my brain is ripping me in is the right one to follow. I'm floundering around, and it's no good.

My winter brain is doing too much, and I find myself feeling empty. It feels worse this winter. I am forcing myself to be functional. It's exhausting.

Certainty in uncertain times > https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/5455-certainty-in-uncertain-times
How Edgar Allan Poe became the darling of the maligned and misunderstood > https://theconversation.com/how-edgar-allan-poe-became-the-darling-of-the-maligned-and-misunderstood-197784
Childhood Trauma Linked to Civic Environmental Engagement > https://neurosciencenews.com/green-behavior-child-trauma-22339/

Maybe I need help?

The missing piece is a calm, which is really no surprise. I've been training for this existential anxiety since they asked us to get under our desks in the 80s. Because a nuclear fallout isn't going to affect you if you're under a desk. And a tornado can't hurt you if you just stay quiet with your head down. On the floor. Head against the blue lockers.

I need the calm to fill the batteries or there's no energy left to create. I'm not sure my lizard brain can change.

And you? Hit reply, where ever you are.

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