“Terror is a powerful means of policy and one would have to be a hypocrite not to understand this.”
― Leon Trotsky
Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest
Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week. A random grab bag of delights!
Oh man. Just a growing sense of horror and dread at the state of this country. It's been hard to escape the sense of wrongness...
When I get past my mind's valid preoccupation with current events, I've been thinking a lot about community and specifically how isolated we all are from each other due to the nature of the work environment of today, specifically situational friendships. You work with a bunch of people you like, you move on, they move on, and suddenly the day to day friendships become once or maybe twice a year at best. I miss my friends I used to have an excuse to see almost every day. I'm also rather enjoying my current team and thinking about how things change and trying to just enjoy each day for what it brings.
Medusa's Garden
When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.
Current word from my therapist - meditate Every Single Day. I agree. And. I also fell asleep for two hours today while trying to do a ten minute meditation. Oops. She also says rest is important but... I'm thinking this may not quite be what she meant! We will try again in a bit to not fall asleep this time. The benefit is in the repetition of practice, rather than the success/failure of any one instance of the practice. Onward!
Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads
What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.
My wool has shipped. My drum carder sits at the ready. I need to find a small table for it - it's currently living on the dining room table and sooner or later that's not going to be the best place for it.
I have gotten a little further on my silk/baby camel scarf. Not enough to show yet, but defnitely has reached 'work in progress' status. :)
Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life
Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.
Something I read as Trump was taking office was an article in the New York Review of Books, called "Autocracy: Rules for Survival." It's linked here & well worth re-reading as the intervening months have started to show the true, obvious, colors of this administration. Also worth reading is thefollow up article, one year later in the New Yorker... Summarizing (but you should still go read the article) the rules are as follows:
Believe the autocrat.
Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.
Institutions will not save you.
Be outraged.
Don't make compromises.
Remember the future.
Somewhere I can't find now was someone talking about how... *normal* life continued on under authoritarian rule - there were still movies, people still went to work, etc.
This is all relevant right now. It's the little things and the not so little things. They're shifting.