Category: systems

cancelled

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For the record, I don’t want anyone cancelled, not really.

I believe in accountability, in taking responsibility for our actions, but the idea of wholesale cancellation, of ruining people’s lives for a misstep, a poor turn of phrase, heck, even sometimes, just the perception of a poor turn of phrase…

It turns my stomach.

There are people who ought to be cancelled. Weinstein, obviously. Every motherfucker at Cornell involved in that Jane Doe shit.

Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Vivek Ramaswamy, etc., etc., Republicans, etc.

These people have committed actual crimes, and show zero remorse for their godawful behaviour.

But in most cases, reaching out, education, is better than condemnation. Condemnation tends to make people defensive and push people into doubling down. It’s a tool to radicalize, mostly unintentionally, against the very people that condemned them in the first place.

It’s a bit like the way the Conservative Party in Canada deals with health care and education. The system’s not perfect, obviously, nothing is. But instead of looking at the problems and working with the healthcare industry or teachers to find solutions and common ground, they just break everything, and then go, see, it’s broken, damn those nurses and doctors and teachers, none of whom set the policies that created the break.

No one, and that means absolutely no one, ever, in history, is perfect.

Utopias are stupid and unreasonable.

Aim for improvement, not perfection. Aim for understanding, not condemnation. There is no joy in Whoville if they burn the Grinch at the stake.

His heart will not grow three sizes if it’s on fire.

Anyway, save the condemnation for the truly evil and the truly remorseless; their ouster from our society is key to our survival as a species. For everyone else…

Education and evolution. Understanding. Patience. Perspective.

Otherwise, all you’ve done is reveal your own myopia. Your own desire for the dehumanization of your perceived enemies.

And who really wants that? Is that going to solve our problems?

Or sow greater division?

Remember: kindness and empathy, understanding and compassion, are not some lefty plot or bleeding heart nonsense. They are not irrational.

They are the heart of logic. After all, what could be more logical that working together, helping each other, and taking the time to create greater understanding?

How could that possibly make the world a worse place?

Logically, it could only be better.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1450 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 45-48
Music: Hell's Ditch, The Pogues

neurodivergent

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I think I’ve been pretty clear here that I’m not entirely normal. I’ve dealt with melancholy, with frustration, with anger issues and isolation.

I don’t think like other people.

My mind immediately rejects any presentation of any perspective with questions about other possible perspectives.

I’m a little bit OCD. A little bit ADD.

(a little bit of Erica by my side.)

Probably bipolar, but you know what? Fuck you.

I don’t have a single actual diagnosis. I don’t need one.

For my entire life, I’ve looked at labels with suspicions. It is very easy to reduce people to less than, to caricatures, based on a label.

Oh, she’s ADHD. He’s gay. Norm’s a Republican. Tara’s a leftie.

Depression, social anxiety, autistic, black, trans, women, disabled, these are all unfortunately convenient shorthands used to make all kinds of assumptions about people that only serve to reinforce stereotypes and tribalism, instead of opening up space to actually learn about who people actually are.

It’s too easy.

And it’s bullshit.

I refuse to get a diagnosis, because I do not want that diagnosis to define who I am. Indeed, today, I listened to two people openly mock the neurodivergent, despite the fact that at least one of them was fully aware that there was one in the room, reducing them to oddballs and weirdos. They rolled their eyes at the idea that we might take the time to recognize them, or accommodate them in any way.

It pissed me off, mightily, and my boss did nothing to push back.

That’s why I don’t get tested. Not because I don’t want to fix the problem, but the second that label is attached, you are now less than, a joke, no longer an actual person, but a diagnosis.

You are not Empty; you are (insert diagnosis).

The farther away we can move from boxing people in with labels (a favourite pasttime, it seems, of the millennial and Gen Z crowd, although Boomers are great at labels as well, though theirs tend to be a little cruder, and more bigoted), the better.

Remember how you chastise and cancel people for every little thing; when you’re no longer the youth in charge, you too, will be labelled horrible, and probably for this. Your children will reject you, and the stigma of your endless labels.

The reduction of the human is tragic; the pasting of a prefab schematic onto anyone’s life (and I’ll include our pets in this), is a fucking monstrosity.

There. Go cancel yourselves now.

You deserve it.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1479 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth, Chris Hadfield
Comics: The Walking Dead 41-44
Music: Hefty Fine, Bloodhound Gang

your father’s life is worth $154.08 a month

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There’s a part of me that wants to write a whole poem about this, but Jesus, it kind of writes itself, doesn’t it?

It’s like the six word poem, baby shoes for sale, never worn, which says so much.

A hundred and fifty-four dollars and eight cents a month.

That’s what you’re worth, orphan.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 3074 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
Comics: The Walking Dead 21-24 (I forgot how great this series was before the show got super repetitive and blew it.  Part of the reason I never finished it, and why I'm going back to do so now.)
Music: Heathen, David Bowie

we are blind

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The very first poem I wrote in this era of actually trying, over two and a half years ago, was about how the things we don’t acknowledge are the things that take us down.

Governments ignore the masses to ply to billionaires, and the masses get taken in by a populist con man.

Billionaires ignore the long game in favour of short term returns, and when the cataclysm comes, they will be shocked. No one on the ground will; we’ve been tied to the tracks with a train bearing down on us for years.

One domino will fall, and the rest will follow.

Pay attention to the things you neglect the most; they will be the things that bring you down.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1736 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson
Comics: The Walking Dead 1-4
Music: Heart In A Cage, The Strokes

one thousand

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You believe that shit?

Yesterday, I crossed the last milestone before the manuscript milestone for Father Lightning and today, I realized that it’s been a thousand days since I laid out this gigantic series of goals and focus and wrote a little haiku called Birds Fall.

Now, I’ve written a novella, a novel, most of another novel, five more poems, eleven short stories and eleven more comics.

Man.

A few days ago, there I was, ready to give up.

And now?

I guess I’m on it.

Golf clap for me. I’m not doing too bad.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1771 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Proof Of Conspiracy, Seth Abramson
Comics: The Mutant Misadventures Of Cloak And Dagger 16-19
Music: Hard Volume, Rollins Band (holy fuck, when I say something is genius, or that it sucked me in, or is absolutely transcendent, I'm talking about Joy Riding With Frank - what an experience hearing that for the first time)

there i was, catching up

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But I’m in the doldrums, the part of the work that takes the longest.

Writing, without having to pause to review, takes the least time. I generally average about fifteen hundred words an hour, but that’s a bit of a misnomer.

If I’m hammering out a first draft, or stream-of-consciousness writing thoughts on particular chapter or theme, that time flies by. That hour is more like forty minutes.

Editing is editing. The time is the time. I say fifteen hundred words takes an hour, that means I sit and edit for an hour straight, no stopsies.

But the specific notes I make on scenes, reading the scene, jotting down changes I’d like to make, or ideas that I had, these come in tiny increments, and that hour suddenly equals two.

That’s where shit becomes an issue.

Someday, I’d like to be able to do six thousand words a day, but if it’s all this kind of stuff, that means eight straight hours of notes, which is a bit of a nightmare. Definitely can’t be done with a regular job on the side.

So, either I have to find a better way, less notes, more feel, more and faster iterations/drafts, or gut it out.

Or just get used to the fact that when this part hits…

I will fall behind.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1452 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: How To Read Nature, Tristan Gooley (perspective and systems and complex connections based on simple precepts, woo, sign me the fuck up.  You tickled my genius' g-spot with that one.)
Comics: Cloak And Dagger v2 4-7
Music: Hang-Ups, Goldfinger (terrific album)

epilogged

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Epilogued? What’s the best way to say that?

The return of complexity; we are preaching kindness as logic, and logic as kindness, but there are those still too lost to see past their own suffering.

Where does kindness stop? Is someone’s refusal to accept someone else’s kindness the line to draw? Or do we just hold back a moment to let them catch their breath and think it through?

Can cruelty be kindness? (Not actual cruelty, but hard truths, spoken softly, things people don’t want to hear, but needed to.)

Where do we draw the line? Where does compassion end?

For example, Donald Trump. In an absolute application of kindness, we’d show it to him as well, even though, at this point, it’s pretty clear he’s unredeemable. At this point, he just needs to be removed from office, and exorcised from society. Locked up, whatever. Out of power, along with all the other Republicans.

There’s still kindness in that, however. Maybe not for the Republicans, although we’re technically saving them from themselves.

But the greater kindness, to the rest of the world, the people being affected by their monstrosity.

The needs of the many, and all that.

Thanks, Spock, you’ve helped me prove my point – kindness is logic, logic, kindness.

We miss you, Mr. Nimoy, but thanks for what you left behind.

Target: 1700 words
Written: 1463 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Jagannath, Karen Tidbeck (minus the body horror short stories, I rather enjoyed this.  Very accessible.  Nice.)
Comics: Invincible Universe: Battle Beast 12, Capes 10
Music: Ham Fisted, Local H (do these guys even have a bad album?  Same schtick, but it remains great.  Maybe their debut was a little weak.)

mausoleums and paranormal mechanics

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It’s weird; for an agnostic who believes only in what is, I sure write a lot about what isn’t.

Because maybe it is somewhere. In enough universes, enough dimensions, who knows what the baselines might be?

That’s the fun of it. I actually loved the idea of imagination being a primary power source for dimensional travel in Black Science. It makes perfect sense.

And as I struggle to lay the basis of the lore of Nggoth, I can’t help but wonder…

What else is out there?

What else could possibly be?

There are no limits save those we place on ourselves, at least in the dimensional teleports of imagination.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1683 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Stand, Stephen King
Comics: Invincible Universe 1-3, Invincible 102
Music: Full Swing: Act 1, Various, but mostly for the Big Rude Jake

rainy day card games

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And other such fun. We did get out for lunch, which was nice, but yeah. If I’m going to be stuck in my cabin all day, maybe it shouldn’t be with the whole gang, and no time to read, and a goddamned plugged toilet minutes before I go to bed (not my fault).

I’ll be honest. I am short-fused when I don’t get that sweet, sweet alone time.

It is something I wish the people around me truly understood.

It is something the world, in its current incarnation, barely understands, with its constant notifications, constant connection, constant updates.

Never was a world more lonely than the one where no one ever shuts up.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2604 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Stand, Stephen King
Comics: Invincible 68-69, Invincible Presents: Atom Eve & Rexsplode 1-2
Music: Frizzle Fry, Primus (fuck, I forgot what a killer album this is)

the water

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Today, I return to the cold depths of Lake Temagami.

I cannot wait.

It’s like anywhere we go with the water – rivers, lakes, oceans or otherwise.

It is the lungs of the earth. The heartbeat.

There is no better way to commune.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1611 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Stand, Stephen King
Comics: Dynamo 5 22-23, Invincible 64-65
Music: Friction, Baby, Better Than Ezra (what a dick you must have been to have someone name a band after how much better than are than you)