“Calm And Queenly, Comes The Summer Nymph, July—crowned With Azure, Clothed With Splendour,”

Blood family

I think that whoever, or whatever, created human kind

They really, really, really,

really

wanted to force the point across that we're meant to socialize on a broad scale. To interact.

And I don't mean that in an emotional, "I saw a stranger on the bus and suddenly I remembered what we're here for" way (I do those too, but not today). I mean it in the barest, most fascinatingly clinical way.

Blood family.

Blood connects you to the most ABSTRUSE kinds of people! They can be such, such fundamentally different people to who you are yourself. Would you have ANYTHING to do your uncle if he weren't blood? Your aunt? It gets real great when you get close to each other in age. Would you have anything to say to your cousin if you met them in school?

It's bizarre. It's fascinating. It's a small but ridiculous. We are born, we are forced to interact with people completely different from ourselves. You choose friends. You don't choose blood family.

It seems so... stoic. Clumsy, brutal. There is no way you can escape the horrid, lovely, interesting, deeply uncomfortable ties to society. Not your society, not the one you create for yourself with friends, but the general one. You are born forced to confront the fact that humanity is as varied as snowflakes, to use a clichéd metaphor.

Do with that what you will. It's a fact. Not a single person can escape it. You always grow up with some kind of family that you're forced to spend time with. An orphanage, a traditional family, a single parent maybe.

Connection. For better or for worse.

one of the things that's the most fucking frustrating for me about arguing with climate change deniers is the sheer fucking scope of how much it matters. sweating in my father's car, thinking about how it's the "hottest summer so far," every summer. and there's this deep, roiling rage that comes over me, every time.

the stakes are wrong, is the thing. that's part of what makes it not an actual debate: the other side isn't coming to the table with anything to fucking lose.

like okay. i am obviously pro gun control. but there is a basic human part of me that can understand and empathize with someone who says, "i'm worried that would lead to the law-abiding citizens being punished while criminals now essentially have a superpower." i don't agree, but i can tell the stakes for them are also very high.

but let's say the science is wrong and i'm wrong and the visible reality is wrong and every climate disaster refugee is wrong. let's say you're right, humans aren't causing it or it's not happening or whatever else. let's just say that, for fun.

so we spend hundreds of millions of dollars making the earth cleaner, and then it turns out we didn't need to do that. oops! we cleaned the earth. our children grow up with skies full of more butterflies and bees. lawns are taken over with rich local biodiversity. we don't cry over our electric bills anymore. and, if you're staunchly capitalist and i need to speak ROI with you - we've created so many jobs in developing sectors and we have exciting new investment opportunities.

i am reminded of kodak, and how they did not make "the switch" to digital photography; how within 20 years kodak was no longer a household brand. do we, as a nation, feel comfortable watching as the world makes "the switch" while we ride the laurels of oil? this boggles me. i have heard so much propaganda about how america cannot "fall behind" other countries, but in this crucial sector - the one that could actually influence our own monopolies - suddenly we turn the other cheek. but maybe you're right! maybe it will collapse like just another silicone valley dream. but isn't that the crux of capitalism? that some economies will peter out eventually?

but let's say you're right, and i'm wrong, and we stopped fracking for no good reason. that they re-seed quarries. that we tear down unused corporate-owned buildings or at least repurpose them for communities. that we make an effort, and that effort doesn't really help. what happens then? what are the stakes. what have we lost, and what have we gained?

sometimes we take our cars through a car wash and then later, it rains. "oh," we laugh to ourselves. we gripe about it over coffee with our coworkers. what a shame! but we are also aware: the car is cleaner. is that what you are worried about? that you'll make the effort but things will resolve naturally? that it will just be "a waste"?

and what i'm right. what if we're already seeing people lose their houses and their lives. what if it is happening everywhere, not just in coastal towns or equatorial countries you don't care about. what if i'm right and you're wrong but you're yelling and rich and powerful. so we ignore all of the bellwethers and all of the indicators and all of the sirens. what if we say - well, if it happens, it's fate.

nevermind. you wouldn't even wear a mask, anyway. i know what happens when you see disaster. you think the disaster will flinch if you just shout louder. that you can toss enough lives into the storm for the storm to recognize your sacrifice and balk. you argue because it feels good to stand up against "the liberals" even when the situation should not be political. you are busy crying for jesus with a bullhorn while i am trying to usher people into a shelter. you've already locked the doors, even on the church.

the stakes are skewed. you think this is some intellectual "debate" to win, some funny banter. you fuel up your huge unmuddied truck and say suck it to every citizen of that shitbird state california. serves them right for voting blue!

and the rest of us are terrified of the entire fucking environment collapsing.

Philip Levine, “The Mercy”

There is hope. I promise. Young people just won their case against the state of Montana. Ecuadoreans braved escalating political violence to vote against oil drilling in the Amazon. Brazilian deforestation is down by enormous amounts since Lula took office. They’ve invented hydropanels that synthesise pure water from the air. People are farming in solar parks. A ship just launched for its maiden voyage using rigid sails designed to mimic wind turbine blades. EV sales are taking off, and, more crucially, cities are re-assessing their very relationship with the car. By the 2024 Olympics the river Seine will be safe for people to swim in again. More and more people are replacing their gas boilers with heat pumps. Solarpunks are growing crops in their back garden and distributing them to their neighbours. Great tracts of land are being given back to nature. Young people are channelling their energies into meaningful careers. Pilots are leaving the aviation industry. Yes, the world is dark and terrible and full of awful dangers that keep you up at night, but we are a huge movement that grows every day in numbers and power. Your small actions matter. Our collective triumphs are increasing. Things are going to get harder, extreme weather will be more common, but with ingenuity, resilience and crucially, COMMUNITY, we can build an equitable world on this strange, tired old planet. See you in the future.

you know what, screw falling uncontrollably in love. Nah man. I want to meet your eyes across the room for the first time and start grinning. A slow, spreading smirk. I want to think 'oh, you bastard. I've been waiting for you. Hello.' and I want you to smirk back.

oh, these blue-eyed boys, these firestorm boys with constellations in their teeth, these back alley boys with bloody knuckles and painted smirks, these snowfall boys with quiet rage and quieter hopes.

pity these blue-eyed boys gave mercy on these blue-eyed boys because the world will have no mercy for them and they are born with almost etched in their bones.

he almost loved him. he almost kissed him. he almost held him.

he almost followed him. he almost stopped him. he almost caught him.

he almost saved him. he almost made it. he almost came home.

he almost—      he almost—           they almost—

they almost had a chance.

I just want it to matter! I want the lives of the people that die on this planet, the people who are killed through violence and apathy and cruelty, to matter. And I know they matter to like, people with hearts and eyes and good sense, people who know how to love this world, but it feels like literally nobody with any power to make immediate change cares. Whatever. I care, you care. We care.

The poetry in this is that it's from 2021, and the user deactivated.

this year will be wonderful. you will meet new people who will feel like sunlight. someone out there will be lucky enough to meet you. you will see breathtaking views. you will learn so much knowledge from your studies and gain so much wisdom. there will be bad days but you will heal and start again in the morning. you will discover what makes you happy. you will fill up journals with scribbles and messy drawings. you will feel low and make mistakes but they will help you become a stronger person. you will pick up new things that give your life meaning and you will pour your heart into it. you will find songs that speak to you more than anything else in the world. you will grow. this year is waiting for you and it’s beautiful.

“It was November — the month of crimson sunsets, parting birds, deep, sad hymns of the sea, passionate wind-songs in the pines.”

- Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Montgomery