Tag: change

Conservation or conversation?

high contrast black and white, grainy photorealism, winding path made of words

My last bunch of posts have been scheduled in advance.

And I changed my theme to try out some of the wordpress functionality that I have been thoroughly ignoring for some time. Then I regretted it when I saw the results, but ploughed on bravely.

And I connected this to my Twitter account. My barely broken in Twitter account with 100 followers that rarely tiptoes beyond vss365 prompts and replies to Lex Fridman.

Then I didn’t like how it displayed the first post, so I deleted it, and panic-disconnected, then added silly AI images to my posts, then reconnected, and then it didn’t display the same way again so the images made no difference, but hey, at least we all had fun.

I seem to be trying something new. Something somewhat uncomfortable.

I might even stretch to a complete blog overhaul, given I’ve now spent several hours just making it look not too horrific to bear. Though that does sound ambitious.

I had been conserving myself for a long time, because for a while after my last relationship, getting through the day was the priority, and that didn’t feel guaranteed. But what once was a survival tactic has now become an easy habit. One it’s probably time to break. After all, what could I be conserving myself for, if not this?

I’m better when I write. That part’s simple. So…why not also make it a little bit complicated? Just a little bit – just enough to let it feel serious. And why not expend some of my preciously conserved energy on it too? At least enough to let it feel real.

I don’t know where I’m going, but if I don’t go, I’ll never find out.

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Flight.

Time. Timetimetimetimetime. Where does it all go? Nowhere, you’re the one going places.

I’ve been off on many tangents lately. Flittering about through fiction, illustration, leopard geckos and past traumas. And I keep coming back to the issue that there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to fully indulge myself in the explorations I wish to pursue. Quite often, I stop myself from starting because I know a thread left half-pulled is infinitely less satisfying than one left in the weave.

I suspect I need a radical change. A change more radical than I am probably willing, at this point in….’time’, to make. And so I also suspect that things may be about to get more uncomfortable for me, until I reach the point where I become willing to make it. But I’m holding out hope, still, in this relatively comfortable place, that there is an alternative of inching forward toward the precipice, throwing things over the drop, so that when I get there, and peer over the edge, I will see the landing, and feel reassured that I won’t break my legs. That the change will no longer be so radical that I feel I will need to spontaneously grow wings.

But it would be pretty cool to have wings, I can’t deny that. And the thing is, maybe I have them – maybe I’ve spent these years of life growing them. I don’t know. All I know is I’ve never really flown before. Maybe the only way to find out if you can fly is to fall a great distance, and see if the wind catches in your feathers.

I’ve tried flying a few times before – I didn’t kill myself, but the landings were hairy, and I didn’t arrive at the intended destination. It hasn’t felt fair to take that leap with a five-year-old on my back. Not because I fear he would suffer materially, if things went bad – he’s lucky to have a lot of people looking out for him. But if I land badly, my mind will likely become an inhospitable place for a while, and I probably wouldn’t be able to shield him from that. I would be less pleasant, all my demons made manifest. And it wouldn’t be his fault, and it wouldn’t be his choice.

Oh, but it’s so clear that I’m holding myself back. And I’m not sure there’s a rationalisation that can withstand scrutiny. I’m scared, that’s all.

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Strange times

I’ve been skimming the surface of my life again lately. What am I avoiding?

We are living in strange times. It seems trite to say – what part of the modern era hasn’t been strange? But things seem to be getting stranger. Whenever I think about it, I also can’t help but to think about how tiny I am. A speck, floating on the strange breeze which, one day quite soon, might become a strange hurricane. I have no power here.

I know I have power. And I could use my power, in allegiance with others, to potentially enact some kind of response to whatever strange change is rising. But I’m scared that it will catch me unaware. I’m scared that none of us are predicting it accurately. I’m scared there’s just too much to the story, and that even our best minds fall short. I’m scared it’s going to come down to luck, for almost each and every one of us, which way we get cast by the strange wind that’s coming.

So this skimming I’m doing of late; I think I’m putting my head in the sand. Playing video games instead of living my life, because I feel preemptively trapped and disempowered. As I imagine what decisions I may be called to make in future years, I’m playing scenarios out in my head and regularly finding myself in a hypothetical location where acting in accordance with my values risks my personal safety, and I’m wrestling with the fact that I think, as a mother, I would probably surrender my values for my personal safety. And I don’t like that. Not least because I fear preserving my short-term personal safety could come at the cost of my long-term personal safety. The future is a strange, scary knot.

In part I’m getting way ahead of myself. But, in part, too, I feel like I’ve let myself be left behind. Something is going on in the world, bigger than all the things going on, and I don’t understand it. Not even a little bit. And I’ve sensed it coming for years, and I’ve told myself I was being melodramatic. But now it’s still coming, and it’s closer, and I still don’t know what to do with it.

But that’s not a good enough reason to do nothing.

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Turbulence

There have been a lot of shiny objects, pressing deadlines, conflicting priorities and disruptive forces these past couple of weeks.

Life is bigger than it has been for years, so it all seems right on track as an external manifestation of the inevitable resistance.

Certainly enough to rattle me. Enough for me to foresee the overheating of the systems. But the plane isn’t going down.

Posted on by Yve 0