Keely Adler

So what if the great aspiration we might begin to hold in and for our distressingly hyper-polarized communities is not to see the conflicts “solved”? What if the calling is to hone our skills — and there are definable, teachable skills — at being present to conflict in a way that is life-giving?

Death and grief are great forcing functions that collapse all of your false narratives. It’s a vacuum cleaner for a messy mind, especially in a culture where we let nothing die, which means nothing can be reborn. It is a gift for the living in that way.

I understand the cautions against leaning into depressive episodes. I also understand how many things that people label “indicators of depression” are also 1) forms of deep rest and 2) general resistance to the idea that every day should be filled with lists of things to do , places to be , productivity to exalt. And as Refinery29 writer Sabdhbh

It is a framework that centers not just the loss of physical shelter, but the loss of cultural continuity, collective memory, and the spatial foundations of identity. […]

Where genocide seeks the destruction of a people, domicide describes the destruction of the spaces that allow a people to exist. It names a violence that is both physical and

Life brings an accumulation of unremitting stress, especially for those subjected to inequity — and not just from immediate and chronic threats. Even the anticipation of those menaces causes persistent damage.

• Public Work: SUCH a good resource, this one. “Public Work is a search engine for public domain content. Explore 100,000+ copyright-free images from The MET, New York Public Library, and other sources.” Not only can you keyword search for anything you fancy, but there’s a lovely bit of ‘similarity matching’-type code doing on which means that you

Woo-curious might be the best term for me. But I can stretch my mind to the idea of some sort of collective or universal intelligence. If there is a greater collective “brain”, I think it would have to be predictive, too.