I learned early on, you can only be bullied if you let them.
You can only be offended if there is something you don’t want to be seen. But the first requirement, is that you have to believe in whatever offense it is that they’re selling.
I filmed a butterfly in my garden the other day.
My local hummingbird Daddy sang me a song on Monday. I was laying in the bathtub, outside, soaking. I was processing the life change that is coming.
I wish every legitimate artist could be unaffected when someone calls their artwork “AI generated.” That they could shake it off like an invisible male mosquito (they don’t bite!). As if it never existed.
The things we fight the hardest against, are the ones most like us anyways. They’re the lessons we have to learn but refuse to acknowledge.
I think about a stubborn old man who goes on saying something he knows isn’t true anymore. Takes it all the way to the grave, losing friends and family in the process. False-dignity demanding they hold up a sense of false pride.
As a kid my sisters teased me relentlessly. To tears, and beyond them. The more I cried, the more they pushed. My mom taught me to ignore them.
And then they disappeared, as if it were never a thing.
I can’t bring myself to knock down the spider web outside my front door. It’s a work of art. It’s not hurting anyone.
I also grew up learning from the examples around me, to be cruel for no good reason. To people and pets and livestock alike. Cruel in “nice” and justifiable ways. To teach a lesson, to train, to “refresh” them. I tried it on but the clothes didn’t fit. They chafed me up something unbearable.
Cruelty shows up in insidious ways. Normalized ways.
Our lives are more violent than we like to believe.
Millie is sprawled across the sofa and foot stool. Back legs in the air, tummy bridging the gap. Fast asleep, and strangely alert. One ear doing sweeps of the neighborhood.
Free time is a most dangerous venture. 8 hour workdays aren’t the norm to optimize for productivity. They’re the norm to optimize for a controllable society.
I bought some garlic, used one knob in a pan of pasta. The rest got shelves above the stove next to the onion starters that have been hibernating since the spring. The garlic is throwing off green shoots already, it’s only been a week!
Everyone does what they want. You can’t tell them a thing.
Some people really do change. But most don’t, and it’s a damned shame.
