Wrote this, on Rojava, trying to organize actionable things in a collaborative way: RFC3: Rojava, Syria and Turkey 2019
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Archive for October, 2019
010.26.19
010.13.19
I will post this. Although it may ramble, be warned – this morning I have given myself permission to simply write, a sort of private-public diary, to try to tease one noodle out of the bowl, or to follow one twisted path of thoughts up to the root.
Reading Virginia Woolf helped, I think. Though it also made me discontent again in the routine I have accepted, the one where most of my life and day goes into work for something that I don’t fundamentally care deeply about, that is not core to me. How did that happen – something to do with rent, bills, children I think. Yet it also has a benefit, this discipline, I have learned valuable patterns from it. The question is, can I find time to apply those patterns to what is core to me, before my mind becomes more fuzzy than it already is?
I have found, this past year, some threads that do feel deeply central, some possible solutions to the world that I want to try, that can be tried by a single person or a small group, that I believe can grow and live and combat some of the cancers that are so rampant right now. Pursuing these fully leaves even less time for a wandering mind, but I cannot complain – perhaps I should instead read again Child of the Dark, in which the protagonist manages to write in the early hours of darkness while spending full days gathering paper to keep hunger from her children – not always successfully.
That said, where does this thread go, if not simply in a circle?
Tied to the real world after all, which is the only anchor to keep the tangles from simply becoming clouds of worms, or utter foolishness. People. A_, G_ the families who I have made connection with in their deep pain this last year. My children, of course, my husband. But when thinking about the world, it behooves one to connect to it in a real way. And making that contact, directly with the reality of fear and grief and loss under these authoritarian regimes growing like cancer with their disgusting front philosophies that greed is somehow good, or the shallow paper tigers of ‘fighting terror’ or ‘fighting corruption’ – but not by exposing it to the light.
That contact, for a while it made it difficult for me to have normal conversations, to deal with petty issues, even to take pleasure in silliness or lighthearted play or music.
Now that has changed, and somehow the minor inconveniences and small pleasures live side by side with the feeling of being in an epic battle for freedom, truth and cooperation against greed, lies and violence.
I still worry about letting people down, not doing enough to help, or forgetting my own family in the bigger picture, or just forgetting to feed the fish. But it feels more like a flow of some kind, now that I am swimming more than thrashing, or at least I hope so.
I find I feel love for my foxhole-mates, all the others that I know and do not know, who are engaged in this same struggle one way and another. I don’t feel any need to be in charge of others, but I do think that I have some insights that I want to share – about the patterns, that its not enough to say, here are the victims, A, and the perpetrators, B, and all we need do is kill the B and give weapons to the A. Because being a victim does not make one moral, or a leader, or necessarily know all the solutions! Even very innocent victims, may envision solutions that would produce a system that can be easily gamed or taken over, or misused, by oversimplifying and directing force without feedback.
Feedback, transparency, truth, openness – these are a general pattern that protects. Simply allowing others to see, and to comment, and to say the impact they have felt, is perhaps the most general and powerful corrective mechanism. This is why, in fighting I focus on openness, of the DHS camps, or of campaign donations, and at least contact into the secret prisons.
And, telling people who do not see, who do not realize, the level of hidden violence in the world, is another thing I want to find a way to do. Not sure how to do that, the talks that I see given seem mostly insufficient, but I don’t know that I’m prepared or qualified to do better. Perhaps I’ll try anyway.