words matter

“Quiet Quitting” articles allowed readers to access a convenient cause (damn lazy Gen-Zers) for a pretty existential problem (work sucks). It’s also, conveniently, a way of blaming workers for systemic ills. “Quiet Hiring” deflects from organizational norms that call for eking out as much productivity (at the lowest cost) from each employee in the

In John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Berger describes the relation between what we see and what we know, more precisely arguing that what we know impacts what we see (and vice versa). Talking about the ubiquitous abundance of images and their increasingly ephemeral, insubstantial, and available meaning, he says, “If the new language of images were used

Language can be a gift, and language can be a tool of colonialism.

The western point of view, the dominant materialist worldview, holds that land is the source of ecosystem services, land as property, as capital, as natural resources. Sustainability defined as how we can continue to use and to take. Whereas the indigenous perspective honors land

The term bedrotting screams the quiet part aloud: when the ability to work is cherished above all else, rest has to be framed as abject.

But when tokens could be literally anything, why are they currencies, points to be accumulated and POWER to be gained? I think it’s simply because these are the metaphors we all understand living under the sun of capitalism. What if instead of sending points you could send someone water or sunlight? Rather than having your power grow within a

I think of the act of naming as diagnosis. Though not all diagnosed diseases are curable, once you know what you’re facing, you’re far better equipped to know what you can do about it.

A verb moment is an act of community, a partnership with the world, with the universe.