We Are All Necromancers

I've never been one for keeping a diary or journal. This blog is as close as I've come, and it usually captures what I'm learning or pondering much more than happenings in my life, and without any regularity or pattern. Still, people are always giving me journals as gratitude or participation swag or the like and I've developed a small collection of empty books waiting to be filled. Then I had the thought to put a leather, rustic journal on my Amazon wish list since it seemed like something a wizard would carry, and someone gave it to me this past Christmas. It's so nice, I felt I couldn't leave it ignored and empty, collecting dust. While my perfect self would fill it with poetry, cryptic and arcane musings, and other spell-like words, I'm not that creative (yet?). But I have managed to pull it out a couple of times to record actual thoughts--to do actual journaling.

The more recent occurrence was a couple of weeks ago during an early break from winter when the weather was beautiful on the weekend. I put the journal into a satchel and carried it with me on a walk on a rural trail. At my furthest point, I sat down on a bench and wrote. After describing my location, environment, and state of mind, I captured the thoughts that follow this image.

 . . . This morning I was reading the book A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar. I've read and thoroughly enjoyed some of her more recent books.* This was her debut, from about ten years ago. I am not quite a third of the way through and intrigued to see what happens next in the tale--which is a recent turn; the writing has wonderfully detailed world building, with dense, lush descriptions. I prefer more psychology and focus on character, so it's been a fascinating yet slow read for me so far.

The book's subtitle: Being the Complete Memoirs of the Mystic, Jevick of Tyom. Ah, now that intrigues me; and we just turned into the beginnings of his mystical experiences.

Normally I would wait to finish a book before articulating thoughts about it, but earlier I was rereading the descriptive blurb on the back cover. The final sentence: "An ordeal that Challenges his understanding of art and life, home and exile, and the limits of that seductive necromancy, reading." The book has not yet used the word "necromancy," so I don't know if it will or if that is something that only appears in this summary. In case it does, I want to capture my thoughts now before they impact me. (I hope it does because I want to know more; I just want to express my ideas, too.)

I'm not sure why, but my eleven-year-old son's fantasies of power have for the past few years involved becoming a necromancer. A wizard of necromancy, the magic of bringing the dead back to life. It isn't because anyone close has died and he wants them back; it's because he wants to command an undead army. I guess he considers living beings too willful and thinks it's better to have mindless minions completely under his control.

"That seductive necromancy, reading." Whoa. That's a thought. Reading is the act of practicing the magic of bringing the dead back to life. Not just visiting the dead or conversing with them, but reanimating them and giving them new life. In you. Through you.

We are all necromancers, then.

And what does that make the act of writing? What kind of magic is that, the spell that preserves you for others to revive?

And what does that make me as a Librarian. Not quite a necromancy instructor, as that would be reading teachers. More of a curator of necromancy, a sponsor and advocate and patron. A champion of necromancy.

I've enjoyed calling myself a story pusher and lore curator for many years, but this is something entirely new.

Am I a priest of necromancy? A necromantic cleric? Paladin?

This will require rumination. For now: a champion of necromancy, sitting in the semi-wild borderlands, crafting the first half of a magic spell that practitioners later can visit to bring me in this moment back to life.

-

(*see: A Kaleidoscopic Collage of Fragments, Moments, Impressions, Personas and Memoir-ish Thoughts in Response to a Memoir)

I've since finished reading it, A Stranger in Olondria: Being the Complete Memoirs of the Mystic, Jevick of Tyom by Sofia Samatar. Reading as necromancy is never boldly, explicitly stated as such, but the idea of preserving the dead in writing and books is certainly at the heart of the story. Here's what I wrote for my review:

A remarkable book. It has some of the deepest and richest world-building I've encountered, and Samatar describes her world in deep, rich, lush language. In many ways, I might even go so far as to say the setting is the main character, the cultures and stories and beliefs of the people, the sights and sounds and dwellings and landscapes, more than any individual. It is poetic and immersive and, in its own way, subtle.

Jevick is the son of a wealthy merchant from an island country, unusually educated in the language of the nation they trade with thanks to a private tutor. He is a romantic, a scholar, in love with books and stories and learning. The first time Jevick travels abroad, leading the annual expedition after his father dies, he is more interested in experiencing Olondria than conducting his trade. Then he becomes haunted--quite literally--by a ghost. Which, in the land's ruling religion, makes him a saint, which makes him illegal since saints have been outlawed. And before he knows what's happening, Jevick is at the center of political manipulations and maneuverings between Olondria's two religions that are vying for power--when all he really wants is to find a way to rid himself of the torturous haunting. His quest ends up leading him across the continent, reluctantly drawn into events as a means to accomplishing his goal, and possibly discovering love, heartache, and sorrow along the way.

I hope that description comes across as enticing and exciting, as I'm hoping to do the book justice. Because, unfortunately, for all that I appreciate and respect the writing and love all of the story's elements, I often found myself a bit bored with reading it. The descriptions were too much, the loving detail with which every location and experience was described was not my preferred type of book. I like something with more psychological and philosophical drama, more character focus. No fault of the book, I just didn't have the right kind of chemistry with it to fall in love. Nonetheless, it is worthy of many stars and I'm glad I read it.

And here is the full description from the back cover I was looking at; also shared on Samatar's website:

Jevick, the pepper merchant’s son, has been raised on stories of Olondria, a distant land where books are as common as they are rare in his home. When his father dies and Jevick takes his place on the yearly selling trip to Olondria, Jevick’s life is as close to perfect as he can imagine. But just as he revels in Olondria’s Rabelaisian Feast of Birds, he is pulled drastically off course and becomes haunted by the ghost of an illiterate young girl.

In desperation, Jevick seeks the aid of Olondrian priests and quickly becomes a pawn in the struggle between the empire’s two most powerful cults. Yet even as the country simmers on the cusp of war, he must face his ghost and learn her story before he has any chance of becoming free: an ordeal that challenges his understanding of art and life, home and exile, and the limits of that seductive necromancy, reading.

So, yes, I might just have to change my title from "Librarian" to "Champion of Necromancy."

That seductive necromancy, reading. Every time we read, we resurrect the dead--or, at least, the past. Reading is bringing another time and place and people back to life. Reading is necromancy.

Just as you, reading this, are practicing necromancy yourself.

A quick aside, a recent anecdote from our younger son, age nine: He was telling me about this penguin he made at school. " . . . and he's carrying buckets of blood and you can tell from his eyes that he's seen some things . . . "

On the topic of writing about myself, something that might have been forgettable had it not led to the exchange below. Not long ago I reshared this meme on Facebook.

The responses:

C3@, except when you're E4$.

C1$ (oooh, maybe this is the real secret code those Alt Ntl Parks folks keep posting. 🤣)

D5!

My first thoughts exactly.

C5$

A5$

It led to this interesting chat dialogue with a work colleague.

Them: Inquiring minds want to know: how would you self-identify on the chart you posted on FB?

Me: That's tricky. I have a general sense how I see myself and how I hope to come across, but feel clueless as to how that translates into reality for others and what vibe they actually experience from me.

Me: And, as with picking favorites, I can't seem to pick just one. I like aspects of everything.

Them: Fair. Did any responses surprise you?

Me: I think I'd rule out A & B. 1 & 2. %

Me: I'd probably put myself largely C (gryphon) with hints of D (goblin ) and E (unknowable).

Me: In descending order 3 - 5 - 4.

Them: Interesting--I briefly considered A and 1 for you, but decided that explaining that "by dragon, I mean 'hoards things' and by 'things' I mean 'experiences and knowledge'" and "by enchanted sword, I mean 'tool with which to solve problems'" felt like WAY too much for a fun FB chart. lol

Me: I don't think I'm intoxicating enough to be ! (ale). I'd like to think I offer the wisdom of tea ($), the comfort of mutton pie (@), and the support of elven bread (#).

Me: Yeah, that's the problem, they can all be interpreted in different ways. Dragon could also mean lazy and destructive.

Me: So I'm surprised to see anyone picked the sword for me because I don't see myself as violent or warlike, but it's hard to know what they meant by it.

Me: I like your response, because it captures layers/dimensions. My normal unassuming self and things you might find at a deeper level.

Them: There's a certain amount of paladin-ness built into a sword, I think, or knight-in-shining-armor vibes that I think are...well, not NOT appropriate, though maybe not immediately surface obvious. Please see the story about the people forming a shield wall, etc

Me: I'm flattered by how many chose $, because I definitely strive for wisdom.

Me: Er - Dragon could mean greedy (not lazy) and destructive.

Them: My dude, you have got to find a response other than "flattered", because that suggests a certain amount of disagreement/disbelief when people say nice things about you, all of which have, from what I can tell, proven to be 100% accurate

Them: And I dunno, I'm sure there are some lazy dragons out there

Me: Yeah, but my first two thoughts are covetous hoarders of wealth and wrathful burninators. Then I might get to magical and charming and tricksy, but the others are primary.

Me: Smaug and all . . . 

Them: Oh sure, but I think there's an argument to be made that once one reaches a certain level of wealth hoard, then one tends to become pretty lazy

Them: Could go out and scour the countryside, or could set up this nice adventurer attractor and let them to come to me and then loot their corpses

Me: And I always have to overcome initial disbelief when people see/say nice things about me.

Them: As I tell my friends all the time, you're cool AF and you're just going to have to find some way to be ok with that. 

Me: There Are Two Types of People in the World

Them: "If the person feels he or she is intelligent and capable and has a strong internal locus of control, then that anxiousness gets turned inward and also has an internal focus--I have the ability to impact those around me and my surroundings, so if anything is amiss then I am most likely the cause.  And something is always amiss, so I am always at fault.  The only state that could allow me to stop worrying is complete perfection.  It's almost narcissistic, having such grand expectations of oneself in this way, that if I am not perfect then I am wrong."

Them: Wow, man, pretty rude to publish parts of my diary without even telling me

Me: Q: Where can I find an INTJ?

A: We INTJs are über-introverts, so we prefer asynchronous and semi-anonymous forms of communication. We get most of our socialization through internet forums and Usenet newsgroups. Look for us there.

The Compleat Idiot's Guide to the INTJ

Them: Q: Why does my INTJ just start nodding and smiling after we’ve been talking for a couple of minutes?

A:

Them: Today I learned that I can in fact stifle a guffaw

Them: And fun fact, I'm INFJ, so that extremely feels like it explains some things regarding key differences between us. lol

Me: I find this entire document is scarily accurate for my instinctive tendencies, though I have worked hard to become a kinder, gentler version of INTJ.

Them: Me: You are awesome and should love yourself!

[Degolar]: Nah.

Me: Butbutbut here, let me enumerate the cool things about you!

[Degolar]: (munches on a snack and thinks about trees)

So, even though I started it, I think people are too multidimensional and layered for a single answer; but, if I was forced to pick a response for myself right now (and the answer might be different later), I would assign myself: C3$ - Gryphon, Apothecary Satchel, Tea of Wisdom.

That same colleague also recently reshared Resistance Is Contagious when I posted it on Facebook, with the following introduction:

Though quiet and externally nonchalant, I'm definitely not accustomed to considering myself "extremely cool." I, uh, was flattered.

The post I shared with my colleague in the dialogue above, There Are Two Types of People in the World, makes reference to being the type of person who likely qualifies as "highly sensitive," so it seems appropriate that this just popped up in my feed the other day.

What Does It Mean to Be a Highly Sensitive Person?

What I discovered after many years of studying this innate survival strategy is that high sensitivity means, above all, thinking deeply about everything. Which makes someone like me, well, thoughtful, creative and inclined more than most to both science and spirituality. Having nearly automatic empathy – almost too much sometimes – we cry easily. We notice subtleties: birds, flowers, the lighting in a room, and if someone has rearranged the furniture.

With all that going on in a sensitive person’s brain, we are easily overstimulated. . . . 

About 30 per cent of people have this trait of high sensitivity – and because it is a survival strategy to observe before acting, it’s a trait seen in many. We’ve all met an especially sensitive cat, dog or horse. But there are sensitive birds, fish and fruit flies too. . . . 

The trait of high sensitivity is always seen only in a significant minority because there is no advantage to any individual if all of them notice and consider details about food patches (or anything else) equally. For that reason alone, there will also be many individuals low in sensitivity, enjoying the advantages of saving energy by not paying particular attention to stimuli.

In humans, this innate survival strategy involves noticing and adapting to details in the environment, especially the social environment. Those with this trait are carefully observing and processing what they take in, consciously or not, and maximising what they have learned. This kind of deep processing can be difficult to observe. The sensitive individual, child or adult, is simply watching and thinking while going about life, not appearing different from others. Just processing more. One can imagine that, when an adaptive behaviour is decided on based on this processing, the change may be gradual, or it might occur suddenly, before others make the same move – perhaps taking a shortcut, changing one’s diet, or buying something on sale before others have noticed the reduced price.

While information for HSPs is all over the internet, the trait is still not very well understood. One reason is the central fact that depth of processing, which is largely invisible, is the key to all the rest. Another confounding element is differential susceptibility: because HSPs are tirelessly processing their experiences, they are affected more positively than others in good environments, especially in childhood, and more negatively affected than others in bad environments. Therefore there are quite a few HSPs suffering from anxiety, depression and shyness due to difficult childhoods, and they are more visible than HSPs with good-enough childhoods.

The good news is that highly sensitive people are more positively affected than others by interventions. The bad news is that stress is also more damaging to HSPs, and more likely to be correlated with physical illnesses. After decades of studies finding more illnesses in HSPs, a crucial study concluded that stress was the underlying reason for these illnesses, not simply having the trait. The HSPs I sometimes call ‘high functioning’ may not even be aware of their trait or, if they have learned about it, have found the suggestions useful and moved on. They are mostly invisible, except for their creativity, deep thinking and empathy for others. They are not angels but, having enjoyed a good upbringing, are often very nice people.

HSPs are difficult to identify for at least three other reasons. Sensitive men are not noticed because the cultural stereotype of sensitivity in the West is that it is feminine and somewhat of a weakness. . . . 

Another violation of the stereotype of a sensitive person is that many are extraverts. . . . 

About half of HSPs have another innate trait: seeking novelty and high sensation. They are easily bored and love new things. . . . 

In brief, if you want to be sure you are dealing with a highly sensitive person, watch for signs of depth of processing. For example, their ideas are usually well thought-out. If they suggest where to go for a hike, they have probably considered the time of day, the aspect of shade and sun, the wind, and the distance from other hikers, among other pertinent details. They may prefer not to give an opinion, however. In a committee, for example, or a family, their opinion may differ from the majority, and the HSP may stay silent, wanting to avoid conflict or people being tired of the HSP usually being right.

Another way you can spot an HSP, of course, is their need for downtime and recovery after they have been overstimulated – or when they feel they will soon become so if they do not stop. If they are ‘high functioning’, having grown up in an environment where they felt respected, they may have their downtime planned into their lives seamlessly. When they have had enough, they learn to say: ‘That isn’t going to work for me’ without further explanation. Having clear boundaries like this is a necessity for HSPs. In a sense they are born with thin boundaries, letting in more than others, including the feelings of others, and thus they are inevitably aware of others’ needs.

It reminds me of an article I shared all the way back in 2009 about being "high-reactive" and having an "anxious mind," Are You High-Reactive?

It resonates.

Speaking of work chats and necromancy, we digitally post a weekly question and colleagues can answer if inclined as a way to know each other better. Last week I asked the question What have you lost? I contributed the first response since I was worried people wouldn't know how to respond, plus a few others along the way (subtly indicated below with bold emphasis).

What have you lost?

I have lost my youth

I have lost my temper

I have lost some weight (and gained some back and lost some . . . )

I have lost some inhibitions

I have lost a wife

I have lost my parents

I have lost my loneliness

I have not lost hope

I have lost a good number of bad habits and unhealthy behaviors

I lost the book on vacation.

I lost the book on a plane.

I lost the book in a swimming pool.

I lost the book and found it again…

But it was wet, so I threw it away.

I have lost this antique woven wall hanging during my move to KC. I'm still upset about it and think of it often. 

I have lost my ability to just lie down on any ol' piece of furniture, curl up, and fall asleep quickly then sleep through the night and get up in the morning without anything hurting.

I have lost my sense of smell.

From Of Things Gone Astray -  . . . This is a book about people--none of whom realize it--who have lost themselves. Their routines have become habits of action without thought, and they've lost track of who they once aspired to be and to what might give their lives more meaning. They don't realize they themselves are lost, but they are all confronted, at the start of their stories, with the loss of something else, something unexpected and unrealistic. . . . 

I Lost My Marbles (in a SpongeBob gif)

For a period of my life, I lost the belief that I could fall asleep sober. When I found it, I lost the belief that I could fall asleep hungry. I have been finding it again recently.

I could've sworn that I once had a d100 (100-sided die). In the process of looking for it, I found a weighted d6 that (almost) always lands on 6. All is balanced, I suppose... except that d6. 

I have moved, and I've kept on movin'

Proved the points that I needed provin'

I Lost the friends that I needed losin'

Found others on the way

I've kissed the girls and left them crying

Stolen dreams, yes there's no denying

I've traveled hard sometimes with conscience flyin'

Somewhere in the wind

One Art

By Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I shared the trail guide joke, but not the final poem.

Some might think to be worried about young ones wanting to be necromancers and making jokes like "he's seen some things," but I don't because they don't have any trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy, blurring the line between real and pretend. And because our culture is inundated with dark thoughts and worries about catastrophe. These are children who practice intruder drills at school to be prepared for mass shooters--along with fire drills, tornado drills, and bomb threat drills. Previous generations have practiced nuclear war drills. Children who have sincerely asked if the world as they know it will still exist when they're older or if global warming will have wiped everyone out. Angst is ubiquitous. Doom is everywhere.

Things like this are constantly in my feed:

Fifteen years ago I wrote a post titled Eschatological Tranquility.

That same year I also shared the review I wrote today for Lemony Snicket's book Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid, which included . . . 

 . . . it's the title of the climactic twelfth (of thirteen, of course) chapter that captures what he's all about: "An Overall Feeling of Doom that One Cannot Ever Escape No Matter What One Does."

An overall feeling of doom that one cannot ever escape no matter what one does. Feelings of doom are inescapable. It is a personal feeling and it permeates our culture. I came across the phrase "apocalyptic angst" in the introduction to a book I just read and immediately had new words for an old sensation. Apocalyptic Angst. Omnipresent, pervasive, always and everywhere.

That book is Everything Must Go: Stories We Tell About the End of the World by Dorian Lynskey. It's an insightful, fascinating, and engaging look that sense of apocalyptic angst that pervades human cultures. Because humans are highly prone to chronocentrism, a belief that the current moment in time is more significant than any other, a bias towards the present as unique, special, and momentous, we are highly prone to feeling the dangers we face are uniquely significant and dangerous. It always feels like the end of the world is just around the corner. In a convergence of history, science, and culture, this book looks at the all the popular stories that have captured, reflected, and encouraged that feeling over time.

Though he delves a bit into earlier times and other places, most of the book focuses on the past few centuries--through to the present--in Europe and the U.S. He explores books, plays, movies, music, news, and more, mostly science fiction, and their relationships with the science of their day. There's a comfort in seeing how wrong so many people have been for so long about the immediacy of disaster; it's a wonderful exercise in perspective. Though there remains a sense of dread about the fact that even if the fears of the past have yet to come to pass, they remain among the ever accumulating list of potential possibilities.

The table of contents gives a good overview of the topics considered.

Introduction: Apocalypse All the Time

Prologue: God

Part One: The Last Man

1. Darkness

2. The Last Man

Part Two: Impact

3. Falling Starts

4. Doomsday Rocks

Part Three: The Bomb

5. Dreaming the Bomb

6. Destroyer of Worlds

7. Deliverance or Doom

8. The Doomsday Machine

9. Winter

Part Four: Machines

10. Robots

11. Computers

12. Artificial Intelligence

Part Five: Collapse

13. Catastrophe

14. Survival

Part Six: Pandemic

15. Pestilence

16. Contagion

17. Zombies

Part Seven: Climate

18. Too Hot

19. Too Many People

20. Too Cold

21. Too Late

Epilogue: The Last Day

And a few short excerpts.

There is always enough misery and mayhem in the world to support a claim that it is the end of days, if that is what you wish to see.

-----

One could read Revelation as the original conspiracy theory, in which secret knowledge is revealed to the righteous few who are wise enough to decipher it and the forces of good finally defeat the villainous cartel that is responsible for all the evil in the world.

-----

The first end-of-the-world novel was a pandemic novel: Mary Shelley's The Last Man.

-----

The first person to destroy the world in a manner that seemed, at the time, to be scientifically plausible was Edgar Allen Poe. The murder weapon was a comet.

-----

Much of what we call post-apocalyptic fiction is more accurately described as post-catastrophic. The world has not ended, but a world has, creating a blank slate on which the survivors can write whatever they like: anarchy, tyranny, utopia. Whatever the killer blow might be, bomb, plague or quake, is of secondary interest to the civilizational collapse that it produces.

-----

Are we--have we been--worrying about the right things? Have our fears made the world better or worse? Which warnings are essential to our future and which lead us to battle phantoms? Centuries of predictions reveal that there is no sure way of knowing which fears to prioritize even if you factor in every bias and listen to the majority of scientists--even if you are a scientist. Sneering at the expired dread of previous generations is no aid to making the correct calculations now.

-----

You have to train yourself to say that things are not as bad as they seem and the worst will not happen. The goal is not complacency but sanity--freedom from unjustified dread.

While far from delightful reading, it is nevertheless a wonderful book.

A few longer excerpts:

We are not inclined to appreciate the bad things that have not happened to us--the conflicts and famines avoided, the diseases prevented, the lives saved--nor to measure our anxieties against the ordeals of the past.

-----

[Of R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), the 1921 play that introduced the world to the term "robot" and imagined those machines ultimately replacing humanity:]

Capek felt that literal-minded critics missed the ambivalence of his play. In an article for The Saturday Review, he explained that both the utopian Domin and the sceptical Alquist are right, to an extent, as is every other character: 'I think it is possible . . . that a human truth is opposed to another truth no less human, ideal against ideal, positive worth against positive worth no less positive, instead of the struggle being, as we are so often told it is, one between exalted truth and vile selfish error.'

-----

Alan Dundes, a professor of anthropology and folklore, diagnosed [the survivalist mindset] as a distinctly American phenomenon: 'Americans have a strong undercurrent of rugged individualism, or vigilantism even. Americans take to the hills to fend off the nuclear holocaust with a shotgun and a supply of food.' In Oregon, sociology professor Richard G. Mitchell Jr began studying survivalists for a book. Over the next two decades, he found that some were murderous, paranoid racists and some merely eccentric hobbyists, but all were storytellers. Feeling themselves powerless to shape society as it was--hi-tech, bureaucratic, increasingly incomprehensible--they engaged in a form of speculative fiction in which they could be reborn as warriors, entrepreneurs and builders of a new world. This escape fantasy offered the alienated a sense of community and purpose. 'Life is transformed, idealized, simplified,' Mitchell wrote. 'Imaginary sides are drawn, rules set, action consequent and lasting. The complex modern world of competing ideas and alternative life stratagems distils to a few simple principles, the right tools, and a will to work . . . See the meaning that fill their lives as they ready for the end of the world, as they go dancing toward Armageddon.' Survivalists rarely agree on exactly how that might happen. Mitchell found that 'environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, seditious insurrection, widespread civil strife, internecine race war, thermonuclear holocaust, invasions from within, abroad or above, and other calamities' were all options.

-----

C.S. Lewis argued in 1955 that this might be the paramount virtue of eschatological fiction:

Work of this kind gives expression to thoughts and emotions which I think it good that we should sometimes entertain. It is sobering and cathartic to remember, now and then, our collective smallness, our apparent isolation, the apparent indifference of nature, the slow biological, geological, and astronomical processes which may, in the long run, make many of our hopes (possibly some of our fears) ridiculous. If memento mori is sauce for the individual, I do not know why the species should be spared the taste of it.

I particularly appreciate these, each in its own way.

A related thought from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

Lachesism

longing for the clarity of disaster

For a million years, we’ve watched the sky and huddled in fear. Feeling the thunder rumble deep in our chests, peering up at the storm clouds gathering on the horizon like an army preparing to invade. Even if you try filling the room with TV weather warnings to give yourself a sense of control, you can still taste the chaos hanging in the air.

And yet, somewhere deep down, you find yourself rooting for the storm, hoping for the worst. As if a part of you is tired of waiting, wondering when the world will fall apart—by lot, by fate, by the will of the gods. Almost daring them to grant your wish. But really, you can wish all you want, because life is a game of chance. And each passing day is another flip of the coin.

You can’t help but take this life for granted. Your eyes gradually adjust to the color of the walls, and your ears tune out the chatter. And while your brain goes numb trying to shake off your complacency, your heart can’t sit still, and your gut is hungry for chaos. Itching to get struck by lightning, plunge over a waterfall, or survive a plane crash. Hoping the trauma will somehow change you, leaving you hardened, stripped down, with clear eyes and a clear mission, forced to choose the one thing worth saving while everything else burns to ash, or send one final message to the people you love the most. Longing to watch society break down one pillar after the next, so you can find out what’s truly important, and let everything else fall away.

The apocalypse is one of the oldest fantasies we have. But it’s not about skipping to the end of the story. It’s a longing for revelation, a revealing of what we already know but cannot see—that none of this is guaranteed, and there’s no such thing as “ordinary life.” That our civilization is just an agreement, one that could be revoked at any time. That beneath our rules and quarrels, we’re stuck together on a wide-open planet where anything can happen, which leaves us no choice but to survive, to build a shelter, and find each other in the storm. Knowing that every passing day is very nearly miraculous, a cascading series of accidents that just happens to fall our way.

Eventually, the storm will pass, the skies will clear, and we’ll pick up our lives just where we left them, no more urgently than before. We’ll soak in the sunshine as if none of it mattered, forgetting the sense of fellowship we once found in the shelter.

That’s alright. It’s just life—it’s not the end of the world.

In Ancient Greek mythology, Lachesis is the middle of the three Fates, the one who decides how much time is to be allotted to each of us, measuring out the thread of life with her rod. Pronounced “lahk-uh-siz-uhm.”

The apocalypse is one of the oldest fantasies we have. But it’s not about skipping to the end of the story. It’s a longing for revelation, a revealing of what we already know but cannot see—that none of this is guaranteed, and there’s no such thing as “ordinary life.”

It seems appropriate now to repeat a bit of content from An Ambiguous Sense of Simultaneous Comfort and Unease, a post from just over a year ago:

The other day, just as that storm was starting, I wrote about the book The Mysteries by Bill Watterson and John Kascht:

I'm watching the world transform today. Watching a snowstorm through the windows, everything changing from browns and blacks and greys to white. Watching the power of the weather, of nature. And I'm reminded by these cosmic forces how small and weak I am in comparison.

Humans have forgotten this feeling, The Mysteries implies. Once upon a time, we were defined by an ever-present anxiety about our limitations, our finitude, our powerlessness. The world was big and scary and mysterious. Now, we believe we understand and control everything. Nothing is unknown; nothing need be feared. But we must remember just how many mysteries still lie--and always will--outside our understanding, and adjust our orientation toward the world before it's too late.

Storytellers told of the Mysteries' bizarre and terrifying powers.
Artists depicted the people's many sufferings.

The sense of humility that comes from watching a snowstorm. The Mysteries evokes this feeling with its words and images. Powerfully. The universe is an awe-inspiring spectacle, far too mysterious to ever fully grasp, and we are but tiny specks in its vastness. And, if we're clever, we can pair our anxiety with awe and wonder.

That became my review.

Finally, a poem.

Whalesong

JeFF Stumpo

of course, as a poet, I’m supposed to think

words matter, am supposed to note

the irony in the Pentagon algorithmically removing

references to diversity from its websites

and accidentally pulling photos

of the Enola Gay, famous

for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima

and not, to be clear,

fucking another B-29 in the ass

like a humpback whale,

like the first two humpback whales ever photographed

having sex only for it to turn out

they’re both male,

and the scientists, sometimes quoted

in a news article and sometimes not,

trying to emphasize that they don’t know why,

that the whales may be gay,

or it may be that one is injured,

or it may be that this is what whales do

in the 70% of Earth most of us know next to nothing about

because it is so watery and so deep,

the point being that we can’t ask the whales

what’s up with the buttfuckery,

which is distinct from the buttfuckery of the Pentagon,

which is metaphorical, and,

if I’m being honest, bordering on homophobic

as a term even in a poem admonishing them

for silencing the word “gay,”

realizing I am not being a very good whale ally,

whale here being a metaphor

for a trans state legislator in Montana

speaking so eloquently against an anti-drag bill

that the body politic flips,

a cis straight mother reaching across the aisle,

a couple dozen Republicans changing their votes to no,

a reminder that maybe they just needed to see

that there is so much ocean out there

and it is not just a place we cross

on the way to drop a bomb,

that we should be placing our heads in the water

more often, listening for strange-to-us song

In response to current events and the latest news.

The Idea That We Should Take Care of Each Other

Hey, look! I've created a (relatively) short, focused post.

A couple of days ago my mind was contemplating the fact that Elon Musk called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme," along with a frequent meme that shows up in my social media taking umbrage with the idea that Social Security benefits are an "entitlement." Here is a version of the meme:

And here is how the government describes a Ponzi scheme:

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often promise to invest your money and generate high returns with little or no risk. But in many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters do not invest the money. Instead, they use it to pay those who invested earlier and may keep some for themselves.

With little or no legitimate earnings, Ponzi schemes require a constant flow of new money to survive. When it becomes hard to recruit new investors, or when large numbers of existing investors cash out, these schemes tend to collapse.

Both claims are at least somewhat true, though in Musk's case only if anything ever happens to disrupt the current system--which he, the current president, and their supporters are trying to do.

As I often do when I "have a thought," I gave it words and wrote it. The result follows.

Social Security is a "pay it forward" scheme.

You will not get back the money you pay into Social Security, because that money is used as soon as you send it; used to support the elderly, retired, disabled, and others currently receiving benefits because they are legitimately unable to work to support themselves. In a sense, your money is currently being used to provide for the needs of your parents or grandparents. And they earned that benefit by doing the same when they were younger; they also paid to support their parents and grandparents, who did the same before them. And, when you become aged or injured or ill, you will have earned the support of those who follow you and will be provided for in the same way. You take care of others when you are able and others take care of you when you are unable.

Social Security is a system entirely based on the idea that we should take care of each other.

But isn't that a type of wealth redistribution, you might ask? Well, yes, but in the same sense that ALL government is a type of wealth redistribution. Each individual pays the taxes they are able--some more, some less--to receive equal benefits. Do you believe the government should have a military to protect and defend the country? Some of us contribute more to the military while some of us contribute less to the military, and we all receive equal protection and defense. We get the same benefit regardless of how much we are able to pay--so long as we do pay the fair amount that we can. The same is true of police, of roads, of parks and fire service and every other thing the government does.

Government is a system entirely based on the idea that we should take care of each other.

But why shouldn't I just directly support my own parents and grandparents instead of going through the government mediary and let others do the same, you might ask? In short, because not everyone is a parent or grandparent--or maybe lost that status after some tragedy took their children. Life can be harsh, and there will always be those who lack family or a private support network to care for them when they need. (An aside to say I share a house with a lawyer who processes disability claims for the Social Security Administration; he is part of the process that rejects claims that don't indicate legitimate need--and every day he sees people who really, truly do need that public support to survive.) All societies will always have individuals who need the help of others. If, for no other reason, than eventually we all get old and infirm. Do we want to be kind of society that lets those in need go uncared for? Or do we want a system based on the idea that we should take care of each other?

All societies will always have individuals who need the help of others. Many of us are Christian or have Christian backgrounds. The Hebrew people of the Old Testament had a system of government--outlined in the Bible--based on the idea that each family had property they could use to support themselves, passed from fathers to sons. That meant that those without fathers or husbands--orphans and widows--did not have any family property and had no way to support themselves. Yet they also had a system based on the idea that they should take care of one another.

Deuteronomy sets out the contract God made with God's people for how they should live.

Deuteronomy 10:17-19 - For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 14:27-29 - As for the Levites resident in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you. Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake.

Deuteronomy 26:12-13 - When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year (which is the year of the tithe), giving it to the Levites, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, so that they may eat their fill within your towns, then you shall say before the Lord your God: ‘I have removed the sacred portion from the house, and I have given it to the Levites, the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows, in accordance with your entire commandment that you commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor forgotten any of your commandments.

From this beginning, the theme carries throughout the rest of the bible. Another--one of multiple--from the Old Testament, for instance.

Isaiah 1:17 - Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

And from the New Testament.

James 1:27 - Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

And Jesus, of course. He may not have used the phrasing "orphans and widows," but said many things, shared many lessons, lived many examples of caring for the poor and needy. Perhaps most explicitly in this.

Matthew 25:34-45 - Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

But if you're not Christian or religion isn't your thing, there are countless other reasons to take care of each other. Biologists and those who study nature are more and more often lately finding evidence that the strongest in nature are those who cooperate. "The fundamental unit of biology is therefore not the 'self,' but the network," writes David George Haskell. Those who look will find countless example of nature taking care of others.

If nothing else, remember the parable from Aesop.

The Bundle of Sticks

A certain Father had a family of Sons, who were forever quarreling among themselves. No words he could say did the least good, so he cast about in his mind for some very striking example that should make them see that discord would lead them to misfortune.

One day when the quarreling had been much more violent than usual and each of the Sons was moping in a surly manner, he asked one of them to bring him a bundle of sticks. Then handing the bundle to each of his Sons in turn he told them to try to break it. But although each one tried his best, none was able to do so.

The Father then untied the bundle and gave the sticks to his Sons to break one by one. This they did very easily.

"My Sons," said the Father, "do you not see how certain it is that if you agree with each other and help each other, it will be impossible for your enemies to injure you? But if you are divided among yourselves, you will be no stronger than a single stick in that bundle."

In unity is strength.

Cooperation is self-interest.

Having a system entirely based on the idea that we should take care of each other makes us all stronger together. I take care of someone today, someone else takes care of me tomorrow. No sticks get left out of the bundle to be easily broken. In unity is strength. Pay it forward.

I don't have anything else in a similar vein to add--aside from lots of worry about the current destruction of our government and values that this administration has undertaken--so I'll let that stand as the complete post.

Culture Is the Accumulation of Tiny Acts

Our culture is the accumulation of tiny acts of kindness or cruelty, generosity or selfishness, grace or hate.

It was maybe 15 years ago, and my memory of some of the details are vague, while others are vivid because it was unusual and in its own way a bit extraordinary. It began as just an average day working at the library. I was at the Kids desk. A young woman holding a child on her hip, maybe a year, maybe a bit older, was using the checkout station.

Suddenly, there was yelling. A young man came storming through the doors. "There you are! What the fuck are you doing? I told you not to leave the house!" Something like that. He stalked up to her, got in her face, shouting the whole time. "Get your fucking ass back home!" Etcetera. He started shoving her toward the door.

Two thoughts quickly crossed my mind: This can't be allowed to happen, especially not here at the library. And: Oh, I'm the responsible party for making sure this doesn't happen here. It's my responsibility to do something. As I got up from my seat and headed their direction, I crossed paths with a like-minded colleague from the Adult desk. "Call 911," she started, then, "no, you go; I'll call 911."

I caught up to them near the door, only about 10 yards from where we'd all started. The mom was shielding the child from the man by turning that side of her body away from him; but that meant the child was getting smashed into the wall as he shoved. I had no thoughts of what to do, just followed my instincts. I stepped in between the two of them, faced him, and said, "You can keep talking to her from there if you need to, but you're not going to touch her again while you're at this library."

As I said it, I thought, I should take my glasses off, because I'm about to get punched. My heart was pounding, adrenaline racing, my one thought to be a human shield protecting her, fully expecting him to physically assault me in some way to get at her. Only he didn't. His anger was limited to her and he was able to stay rational enough to keep his focus on just her. He tried to look over one of my shoulders, then the other. Made the starts of movements to reach around me, stopped each. He sputtered and raged some, said it was between the two of them. I reiterated that he could talk to her, but he couldn't touch her.

His back was to the exit, my back to the rest of the library. I became mildly aware of others standing on each side of me. The standoff continued for what felt to me like a long time but I'm sure was just a matter of seconds. Eventually, he said he needed something from her before he could leave and reached out for it. The thing (keys? glasses? I can't remember) was handed over, and he stormed out of the building.

The police arrived not long after and managed to catch up to him still walking a few blocks away. Everything gradually calmed down. The mom and I both filed police reports. Normalcy returned.

But the moment that sticks with me, the bit that I find most extraordinary, was when the man reached out for that thing right before leaving. For the first time during the encounter, my focus wasn't exclusively on him and I became more aware of our surroundings.

I had noticed people beside me in my peripheral vision. But only when I turned my head to the side to watch the hands exchange the object did I realize that I was not a human shield by myself; I was the middle of a human wall. 10-15 other people had joined me, most of them random library patrons who saw what I was doing and followed my lead.

I don't know if they were already headed that direction to do something but I arrived first, if they saw what I was doing and their support trickled in over the course of the encounter, or if it was some mix of both since I was oblivious to all of it until that moment. Regardless of how or when they arrived, though, they followed my lead. I didn't know it was happening, but I directed--maybe inspired--their actions.

It's a touchstone moment for me, especially in moments where I'm feeling misanthropic and down about human rottenness. Sometimes random strangers band together to do good things, too. And when I write things like my last post, Resistance Is Contagious, with all of its academic research and long book excerpts and deep analytical news articles saying things like, What people think, feel, and do is influenced, often to a startling degree, by what they believe everyone else is thinking, feeling, and doing, I'm not merely writing in theoretical, abstract, potential terms. It really happens.

A poem.

The Word of the Day Is Widdershins

Jennifer Blackledge

which sounds fun and elfin, like that

dance that leprechauns do, hobnail boots

clicking with glee or maybe something a

confused rabbit in coattails might say

when he’s lost his way: Aw, widdershins,

as he lights his adorable pipe and

adjusts his widdle wireframe glasses but

 

like everything lately that arrives in my inbox

or crosses my screen it’s not cute at all,

just a twee way to say backwards, not right:

in a direction contrary to the sun’s course,

considered unlucky; counterclockwise like

 

every day of this cursed year.

I want it to be a magic word I can say three times

and focus my rage to reset the course:

widdershins, widdershins, widdershins but

 

all it summons is my neighbor saying

come on, it was just a Roman salute or a video

of the ladies I used to see at school dropoff or

softball games singing God Bless America in

red-white-and-blue shirts and hats that ends

with their right arms in the air, giggling and

 

yet another think piece that asks mildly if we really

saw what we saw: that arm raised like a dark minute hand

that drags us fucking widdershins,

down into a warren we dug so long ago

we forgot how deep it ran beneath us.

from Poets Respond

Everything lately is widdershins, indeed.

(How does my browser's built-in dictionary not know the word widdershins?)

A Facebook post from Homeless Training by Ryan Dowd:

Think about the last time you took a moment to be kind…

Maybe someone dropped papers, and you helped them pick them up.

Maybe you held the door for someone.

Maybe you offered an encouraging word to someone who was struggling.

According to research from the University of California, San Diego and Harvard, the kindness likely didn’t stop there.

It “rippled” out into the very fabric of humanity.

Apparently, our actions have consequences through three degrees of separation:

You show kindness to Abe.

Because of that interaction…

Abe shows kindness to Barb.

Because of that interaction…

Barb shows kindness to Carol.

Because of that interaction…

Carol shows kindness to Dan.

According to the research, that is as far as it goes. (I’m not sure why Dan was the jerk to breaks the chain…)

But think about it:

You engaged in one simple act of kindness…

But it impacted Barb, Carol and Dan…

…people you might never meet!

So what?

We are waiting for politicians or celebrities to change the world in some big grand gesture.

That isn’t how humanity works.

Our culture is the accumulation of tiny acts of kindness or cruelty, generosity or selfishness, grace or hate.

So, find a way today to spread a little ripple of kindness through the fabric of humanity!

Peace,

Ryan

(I've previously blogged about his source for "three degrees of separation," Christakis and Fowler, in I Resolve to Be a More Positive Influence on my Networks and You Have Three Degrees of Influence, among others.)

Find a way today to spread a little ripple of kindness through the fabric of humanity.

Resistance Is Contagious

A recent teachable moment with my two boys, aged 9 and 11:

"[Younger], what should I make [Older] for breakfast?"

"His own flesh."

"[Older], what should I make [Younger] for breakfast?"

"I was going to say pancakes, but: his own flesh."

"See? Cooperation will often benefit you more than hostility."

For the record, [Younger] doesn't like pancakes; so [Older] wasn't planning on being generous, just didn't have the same stakes in mind as his younger brother.

Humans are innately social. We constantly, automatically look to others to determine how to act and what to think--without even being aware of it. Others are always influencing us. And we are always influencing others. It's instinctive, unconscious, and inescapable.

Who you are, what you say, and how you act will always have at least some small impact on everyone who observes you. You contribute to the collective consciousness, will always sway in some small way the behaviors, thoughts, and values of groups you're a part of.

In situations where you desire change--where you might hope others will join you in some form of defiance or resistance--compliance, silence, and acceptance will signal to others you support the status quo. Dissent, though, signals to others that they can also disagree. That they are not alone in also disagreeing. Dissent gives permission to more dissent, lends support to resistance. It alters the group's collective outlook. Actions, words, conversations--big and small. It all contributes. It can add up. If there is enough, it can make a positive spiral or feedback loop, building towards the change you want.

Resistance is contagious. Expose others to your resistance.

I shared with my friends on Facebook this letter I recently submitted to my elected representatives at house.gov and senate.gov:

My Representative/Senator,

I am a life-long Kansan. I work for the local government as a public servant (librarian), my parents were both public school teachers in Kansas, and many in my extended clan have also served their Kansas communities as teachers, police officers, and similar.

I first want to say that Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their administration do not represent my values. I oppose the majority of their policy positions. And I would like to see you take that into consideration as you represent your Kansas constituents in your decisions and negotiations.

More importantly, I vehemently oppose the methods the administration is using to implement their policies and positions. I accept that my views may not be in the majority and don’t expect them to be uniformly enacted; however, I expect them to be respected, considered, negotiated, and subject to due process and compromise. That is the basis of our system. It is explicitly designed to force debate, negotiation, and compromise. Regardless of the other values under consideration, this should be a baseline fundamental that cannot be questioned or skirted. Otherwise, the freedoms and rights we hold so dear will be degraded.

Again: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their administration are acting in opposition to American democracy, freedom, and values. Many of their actions are illegal, and they are actively working to destroy our system of government.

They claim many U.S. citizens and residents, the very people they have been elected (or not, in the case of Musk) to represent, serve, and protect, are “enemies.” NO. We are all neighbors and community members, all in this together. We will disagree, but we must do so as fellows. If they cannot respect that, they do not deserve your support.

I ask you to please use all of your power and influence to require this administration to respect our system of government, accept the necessary compromises of checks and balances, and represent all Americans, not pick and choose among us.

Thank you.

Resistance is contagious. Expose others to your resistance.

I also recently posted this thought: It's about reputation and perception. If this president says something is so, his supporters will accept that as a true fact not open to question. Even if he does something contradicting what he has said, others attest to those actions, and evidence of those actions is provided, they will not question it so long as he stands by his claim.

Many items I've shared lately on this blog have influenced what I wrote above, about resistance being contagious. Here are some of the key ideas that keep running through my mind:

Anticipatory Obedience

Social Proof

The Defiance Domino Effect

Conformity and Dissent

Living Authentically

The Power of Language & Storytelling

Here's a bit more about each of them:

Some democracy advocates worry that too many of our civic institutions are softening their postures toward Trump to avoid getting on his bad side, pointing to what the historian Timothy Snyder calls "anticipatory obedience:"

"Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."

Source: The NFL is Removing 'End Racism' from Its Super Bowl End Zone

See more at post: Look at the World from a Different Perspective

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people look to the actions of others to determine appropriate behavior, especially in uncertain situations.

“It states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct,” social psychologist Robert Cialdini wrote in his best-selling book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. “The principle applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behavior. We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.”

People tend to copy what other people do. If something is popular, we tend to trust it more. When many other people buy a product or follow a trend, we tend to assume it’s good. Our brains are wired to look for clues from other people’s choices. It’s a basic human instinct to follow the crowd. "Monkey see, monkey do."

Source: 90 Percent Will Click This Post. Here's Why

See more at post: All Wars Are Civil Wars

When you defy, it transforms you because you can be more yourself. You’re more authentic. You have a more joyful, honest life. That fascinates me as a psychologist.

[The second thing] is what I call the “defiance domino effect.” This is how defiance transforms the people who observe it.

 . . . That moment affected me. It changed how I thought about defiance, and what I would like to see in the world on a larger scale. Society is built on all of these smaller moments, and I want to see a society where one of the teens would’ve spoken up against his peers so my immigrant mother wouldn’t have to. That’s the type of social change that I would like to see in the world — one where every individual makes a difference.

Source: How the “Defiance Domino Effect” Can Improve Your Life and Transform Society

See more at post: All Wars Are Civil Wars

A great deal of coordination is accomplished via conformity to norms. Conformity has been observed in every domain of life where researchers have looked for it. Experiments have revealed conformity in fashion, political and musical preferences, moral values, eating and drinking behaviors, sexual practices, social attitudes, cooperation, and conflict. What people think, feel, and do is influenced, often to a startling degree, by what they believe everyone else is thinking, feeling, and doing. And because they are bound to groups and identities, the particular norms that guide people at any given moment can vary depending on which parts of themselves are the most salient and active.

-

The real benefits of dissenters come less from the ideas they espouse or suggestions they make than from the ways they change how the rest of us think.

When people are exposed to popularly held ideas, their thinking tends to be lazy and narrow, focused on whether or not the majority view is correct. But when they hear a minority point of view, a rarer perspective, their thinking expands. They start to ponder why anyone would endorse that idea. Truth be told, they often start to argue against it, but in doing so they are forced to cast a wider net of thought, considering and perhaps even questioning their own assumptions.

This is critical because this is how dissent can improve innovation, creativity, and group decision-making. Dissent is effective because it changes the ways that other people think. This means that dissenters do not actually have to be right to benefit the group—they just have to speak up enough to get others thinking. Their mere presence can spark more divergent thought and open up space for others to express alternative views.

Source: the book The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony by Jay J. Van Bavel and Dominic J. Packer.

See more at post: Expand Your Identities

Contemporary dissidents share a mindset, what Václav Havel once called an “existential attitude.” They did not wake up one day and decide to take on the regimes of their countries. They just allowed themselves to be guided by their own individuality . . . Dissidents are born out of this choice: either assert their authentic selves or accept the authoritarian’s mafioso bargain, safety and protection in exchange for keeping one’s head down. Those rare few who just can’t make that bargain—they transform into dissidents. . . . 

They wanted to live authentically in societies that asked them constantly to lie. . . . 

What dissidents teach us is not to normalize. . . . 

They are outliers not because they run toward oppositional views but because they simply insist on pursuing their interests, their curiosities, their desires and unique ways of being human.

Source: What Dissidents Can Teach Us

See more at post: A Blend of Boldness and Despair

And one new one from Rebecca Solnit, who has been inspired by recent events to start sharing her own resistance in the hopes that it will be contagious.

To Use Their Language Is to Endorse Their Lies

Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis, and the current one here in the US is also a language crisis. How we use the language and how we listen for lies that are in single words and phrases as well as in sentences or narratives is part of what we can and must do to resist the Trump Administration's authoritarian agenda. A single word can be a lie. For example, journalists are still calling what Musk and his child army have been doing an operation in pursuit of government efficiency. It is true that in a wink-wink jokey way DOGE is called the Department of Government Efficiency. It's also true that it's not a department, they demonstrably don't give a damn about efficiency, nor are they competent to produce it or pursuing it. It's about efficiency in the same way that the Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four was about truth.

The language to describe DOGE should be the language of invasion and attack, on specific departments, on the stability and functionality of the US government, and on the Constitution and the rule of law, on the rights and needs and even survival of ordinary people. What Musk and Trump are engaged in is a coup attempt and an assault on the federal government, and while more and more people are using the word coup, in other stories journalists are still perpetrating the lie that efficiency is DOGE's goal. It is cheaper to build a car without brakes, though when the driver wants to stop, the results may be undesirable. Severing a limb is a quick weight loss method. We will quite possibly spend less money on a federal government that is no longer functional--but it's our money and we do get some things in return for it we cannot do without.

Departments that protect people, systems, and places are being destroyed, sabotaged, wrecked, their security trashed, their functions halted or impaired, their staff sidelined or shut out, and their websites taken down. Even in a piece of journalism reporting on the damage and destruction, talking about efficiency as the goal legitimizes the motives and muddles the impact. Many are doing the same now with Musk's attacks and agenda. If DOGE was really interested in improving thrift while preserving function, it would probably use accountants who are actually skilled at reviewing spending, but I have heard no reports of accountants involved. It's transparently ridiculous to pretend that a bunch of tech dudes can pop into a complex administrative department and somehow over a weekend or in a matter of days improve it. You can destroy things without understanding them. You can't redesign them without that understanding. . . . 

The language belongs to all of us and to each of us, and under most situations short of torture and imprisonment most of us have some agency in how we use it. Authoritarians recognize that authority over language itself is vital to their power, and these ones want to use language to impose white supremacy, trans hate, the anti-indigenous politics of putting President McKinley's name back on Mount Denali. Going along with them is a surrender most of us don't have to engage in.

But a lot of major corporations have. Not only have Google and Apple both changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the preposterous but oh-so white nationalist Gulf of America, but the Associated Press reported it was coerced to do so, and to its credit it protested publicly. . . . 

Meanwhile a novelist alerted me that the National Endowment for the Arts grant applications have added a requirement that applicants must comply with Trumpian ideology. . . . 

In this moment it's not hard for you and me and lots of everyday people to have more integrity, more respect for truth, and more courage than too many of our largest corporations, news organizations, and politicians. It's a small part of the work we need to do, but a vital one.

My emphasis added.

That's where my mind has been lately. Attention glued to the news, feeling distraught and powerless, wondering what to do about the damage being done to our government and to people's lives. It's been hard to find the focus needed to read, but I've managed a few books along the way.

First, a snippet from Fake Chinese Sounds by Jing Jing Tsong.

I love this!

Black-and-white talk = nonsense.

Things are never just black and white.

(What I wrote of the book in my review, for context: An excellent story of a middle grade girl navigating American life as a Chinese immigrant and her efforts to figure out how to meld the two cultures into her identity. Very everyday, slice of life and relatable; not preachy; sometimes poignant, but understated and not dramatic. It's a personal and personable story.)

I didn't really write reviews of the first two books in N.K. Jemisin's The Broken Earth trilogy because they are already well-known and popular, but I felt moved to write this after finishing the third, The Stone Sky.

Fantasy and science fiction stories almost always involve an element of race relations. I realized this in seventh or eighth grade when Tolkien turned me on to the genre and that was all I read for years. The differences between humans, hobbits, dwarves, and elves, how their societies navigate those differences, the conflicts that arise between their cultures, the ingrained hatreds and mistrust of difference. In sci-fi, the same dynamic but with aliens. Even at that young age I never felt these were escapist imaginings, but allegorical and metaphorical reflections of social, cultural, national, and racial dynamics in real life.

It's not an absolute universal, but it's there more often than not--real life, after all, can't avoid tribal dynamics; so if the people in a fictional story are to feel real and true, tribal dynamics will be a part of their lives, too. Sometimes that's all it is, a small element of the characters' thoughts and relationships to give them grounding and context. Often, though, race relations are fundamental to the characters' journeys and are a key part of the heart of the story. Real social and psychological dynamics at the core; a story of fantastical adventures on top.

The Broken Earth trilogy is one such story. From the start, it implicitly considers what qualifies a sentient being as "human." And, along the way, what qualifies as "a sentient being." Those considerations only grow as the tale does, becoming more integral to the characters' journeys, dimensions and layers added as more of the story of this planet and its inhabitants revealed. Not only cultural and racial differences, but different versions of human, artificial intelligence, and intelligent nature. There are forms of slavery, caste systems, species hierarchies. And it demonstrates difference is no barrier to personhood and humanity, that compelling human experiences come in all shapes and sizes.

I mention this core of social and psychological dynamics mainly because the fantastical adventures layered upon it are so engaging, interesting, and exciting that no more needs to be written about them. It's an amazing story of magic and technology gone awry to such an extent to have broken the earth and the broken lives the succeeding generations of survivors must live--and the small group of individuals hoping to bring healing to their unstable planet. It is a masterfully told, deeply satisfying story.

Worthy of the acclaim.

A couple of excerpts from this book that stood out to me:

There are stages to the process of being betrayed by your society. One is jolted from a place of complacency by the discovery of difference, by hypocrisy, by inexplicable or incongruous ill treatment. What follows is a time of confusion--unlearning what one thought to be the truth. Immersing oneself in the new truth. And then a decision must be made.

Some accept their fate. Swallow their pride, forget the real truth, embrace the falsehood for all they're worth--because, they decide, they cannot be worth much. If a whole society has dedicated itself to their subjugation, after all, then surely they deserve it? Even if they don't, fighting back is too painful, too impossible. At least this way there is peace, of a sort. Fleetingly.

The alternative is to demand the impossible. It isn't right, they whisper, weep, shout; what has been done to them is not right. The are not inferior. They do not deserve it. And so it is the society that must change. There can be peace this way, too, but not before conflict.

No one reaches this place without a false start or two.

-----

"What is it that you want?"

"Only to be with you," I say.

"Why?"

I adjust myself to a posture of humility, with head bowed and one hand over my chest. "Because that is how one survives eternity," I say, "or even a few years. Friends. Family. Moving with them. Moving forward."

"Friends, family," you say. "Which am I, to you?"

"Both and more. We are beyond such things."

"Hmm."

I am not anxious. "What do you want?"

You consider. Then you say, "I want the world to be better."

I have never regretted more my inability to leap into the air and whoop for joy.

Instead, I transit to you, with one hand proffered. "Then let's go make it better."

You look amused. "Just like that?"

"It might take some time."

"I don't think I'm very patient." But you take my hand.

Don't be patient. Don't ever be. This is the way a new world begins.

"Neither am I," I say. "So let's get to it."

And one shorter quote that I appreciate: When we say that "the world has ended," remember--it is usually a lie. The planet is just fine.

I don't know why I decided to read The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez or what brought it to my attention, but I enjoyed it. Here's a review.

As much a collection of ruminations as a story. And intentionally cryptic and cagey about whether it's fiction or autobiography.

The story is about a somewhat older author named Sigrid Nunez living through lockdown and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Well, maybe named Sigrid Nunez--I don't think the narrator names herself, but she says at one point her computer spell-checked her name and suggested "Sugared Nouns"; and other details about her would seem to match. This is in one of many sections of ruminations about writing and authors and authorship, one that includes: You can start with fiction or start with documentary, according to Jean-Luc Godard. Either way, you will inevitably find the other. As I said, cryptic and cagey.

Anyway, the story is about an author resembling this book's author during covid in 2020. She, like many others, must take extra care to isolate because she is vulnerable to the infection. She has good friends, but lives alone. Then she is invited to house sit for the friend of a friend to take care of a parrot. And then she is joined by the bird's first sitter, a male college student, who had earlier abandoned his post. It's a story about isolation and unexpected connections.

More than the story, though, I enjoyed the ruminations. The author's thoughts about a wealth of topics related--sometimes only vaguely and tangentially--to events in her life. I wasn't engaged by the story, but by her and her storytelling.

It's a thoughtful, reflective, introspective book that I quite enjoyed.

A few of her ruminations that I marked:

Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described. They should teach you this in school, but they don’t.

-----

Some writers use pen names so that they can be more truthful; others, so that they can tell more lies.

-----

[Of the documentary film My Octopus Teacher, made by Craig Foster:]

Gentleness is the most important thing that hours and hours in nature can teach, Foster says.

She made me feel just how precious wild places are, he says. You start to care about all the animals, even the tiniest ones, you understand how highly vulnerable these animals' lives are, how vulnerable all lives are. You start to think about your own vulnerability and about death, your own death.

And in the hours and hours he spent exploring the kelp forest, he was stunned repeatedly by the intelligence--the genius--of what he calls the forest mind, a great underwater brain developed over eons, and the intricate work it does to keep everything balanced.

What matters is what you experience while reading.

Finally, a poem.

Two-Hour Delay

Abby E. Murray

It’s February                                 and already

I’ve overspent my budgeted bewilderment

for the year, most of it on deep & constant

sorrow: war, deportations, deployments, hatred

forged into policy, theft, dead phone lines

and locked doors. I’ve seen more planes fall

from the clouds this winter than snow. So,

for less than an inch of scattered flakes across the city,

our superintendent delays schools for two hours,

and before I fill them with what I have in excess—

lack of amusement, a backlog of worry, and work—

my daughter runs outside, gloveless, hatless,

and all I can think is how lucky she is, at least,

not to be named after industry or my assumptions

about her purpose on this planet. When I read

about the young couple practicing eugenics

in preparation for an apocalypse, the mother’s

ridiculous straw bonnet and father’s smug face

don’t make my jaw drop. My eyes don’t widen.

Belief is the new disbelief. Grief, not shock,

is this year’s renewable resource, and baby,

the harvest looks plentiful. My daughter returns

to show me how she scraped together

just enough sidewalk grit and ice to sculpt

a snowman the size of a pigeon. She props it up

in the weeds we call a yard and it stays for days,

long after the sun revokes what’s left

of the frost and glitter. It delights us without

the burden of surprise, which has never improved

anyone’s life, or built a single beautiful thing.

from Poets Respond

Build beautiful things.

Be contagious.