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Let’s talk each other down
Doug Muder suggests that embracing uncertainty helps reduce our anxiety—we don’t know that we’re doomed, and we don’t know that it’s going to be OK.
Now let me tell you something about the particular challenge we’re facing now: Trump. At his core, Trump is a bluffer. . . . Don’t help him. Don’t run around scaring other people about how big and powerful he is. . . . But we do know one thing about bluffers: When their empires start to collapse, they collapse quickly, because each failure causes more people to think “I don’t have to be scared of this guy.” (The Weekly Sift, February 10)
Jordinn Nelson Long offers buckling down to do the work we can do as an antidote to anxiety.
Think, neighborhood by neighborhood, branching out from your own: what’s a “good” neighborhood? And where are the sacrifice zones?
And yes, you bet your ass that this has to do with New Bedford, infrastructure deficits, and first graders who can’t make it to school most days because their parents are working 4 am shifts in the fish houses and there’s no bus for them and walking isn’t safe. (Facebook, February 13)
Jake Morrill has regular afternoon carpool duty, and it’s become a routine that he and his passengers sing“Fly Me to the Moon” and “Ring of Fire.”
I can’t tell you our singing is very good or even that it’s universally popular among the little packed-in carpool brigade. In fact, one rider hates it—or, at least, loves to hate it. But on days like today that present more human need than I could ever respond to, and some stress rises up, I sure look forward to a ten-minute vacation with two of the finest songs that have ever been sung. (Facebook, February 11)
Unity, curiosity, mystery
George Banziger believes that battling climate change has the potential to be bipartisan.
As the election year of 2020 unfolds, there is plenty of rancor and polarization in the political world. One issue that can potentially achieve bipartisan support is addressing a serious and time-urgent problem facing our world and our country — climate change.
Carl Gregg honors Darwin—and explores the ways evolutionary theory has developed.
We humans are incredible animals in so many ways, but not because we were spoken into existence a few thousand years ago in a separate, special act of creation. Thinking and acting along those lines has gotten us to a point of climate catastrophe. We must learn to understand ourselves as evolving through a process that is deeply intricate, interwoven, and interdependent with the other forms of life and ecosystems of this planet. (Carl Gregg, February 11)
Jane Dwinnell shares a few snapshots of her partner’s journey with Alzheimer’s Disease
As the definition of “short term memory loss” now includes almost everything going back four years, Sky’s long term memory is excellent. He lived on a commune for 15 years in the 1970s and 80s, and one of his co-communards has been posting photos on Facebook of the good old days of the back-to-the-land hippies. The poster will ask “Does anyone know who these people are?” and Sky will always have an answer. Not only will he know their name, but he’ll also be able to tell you something about them, how long they stayed, how they contributed, etc.
The brain is a mysterious thing. (Alzheimer’s Canyon, February 10)