Of Two Minds

Sheryl opened her eyes to another bonus morning. She could hear the rain running off the sides of the roof. It must be really pouring! No matter — it’s not like she need to travel to her meeting.   Over the past several months, she had become accustomed to the short commute from her “cozy” bedroom, past the kitchen to pick up some coffee and coconut yogurt, to her desk that she had moved into the window nook as soon as her job went virtual. She’d been in the same apartment since 2007 but she still surprised herself when, clutching her coffee, she looked out to the busy street below. Her friends in Seattle used to joke that she must be a New Yorker with all the black in her wardrobe. Was it ironic that it was in New York that she learned to play more freely with color? In this new life, she never married.. you know, after the twice in her first life. It was all the same to her. Her child, Al, had suggested that maybe she was asexual? or grey romantic? Maybe. Anyway, Severus, she ...

I give thanks to everything  that  took this breath before me.  I seek remembrance that we are one.  Please send me the willingness to let go of my fears  that  I may wrap myself in Love.  May each step be guided by Collective Liberation.  Save me from selfishness and suspicion.  May I honor the Universe within and without. --------- day 22  #pandowrimo  @adriennemareebrown  Post pandemic, how are we envisioning and creating collective/communal living? -  @lettuce.bee.free  

I’ve met you before.  You scared me. I learned not to trust you. And now you come to me hand open as though I would take it You come to me  Fully Aware   — you seem to suggest — of the Hell you dragged me through And you say  we need each other. That my salvation  comes at the cost of Forgiveness. I am only angry  because  I know you’re right. I know you’re right  because  I’ve been telling you to Fuck Off  for years  and I’m exactly as scared as I was. So ok. I’ll try it your way and see  what happens  when we join hands.  -------------- Day 23  #pandowrimo   @adriennemareebrown  So much broke when the sickness came. So much unraveled. What was mended in that time? Socks? Relations? What was woven anew?  @yourfriendkat  

“Pareto Optimality” is the “virtue” upheld by economists that positions growth as the only salve for material suffering. “Methodological individualism” is the lens that positions individual productivity as the only method to arrive at growth. And now we can tell ourselves these lies: I - It is my responsibility to sacrifice my well being such that others might have enough  (it is necessary that my life be unsustainable) II - If I have enough — or an excess — it is because I have earned it.  (a sustainable existence is only justified by earning it through a system known to be racist, sexist, ablest, classist, etc. but believed to be meritocratic) III - Our economy must grow to guarantee there is enough, but if the impoverished don’t capture the spoils of the growth, the fault is their own. Our teachings help our students believe that they are only worth of the necessities of life if they can afford them … and that they must sacrifice the few remaining uncommodified necessities ...

now we call them the foolish prophets, the misdirected, or to combine two old economist jokes: the dismal philosophers. but at the time they were the keepers of the dominant paradigm. it is unknown, still, how many practitioners believed their own teachings or if they lived as jaded puppeteers, shooing away most with integrals and expensive textbooks while inviting the rest into a lucrative life time of blue button ups and platitudes. scarcity had long been eradicated, but was obscured by the assumptions within the sacred texts. the keepers of the dominant paradigm asserted that we lived in the best possible world and, in this utopia, there was not enough. the puppets (then called politicians) made sure to remind the populace of this fact in times of high misfortune while also passing resources to the beneficiaries (banks, mostly). by the end of The Invisible Age, the hypocrisy was lazily concealed but this way of life was so entrenched that the cycle continued on far beyond its unmask...

clairsentience.  (the new experience of the word near.)  in the silence we got stronger. without physical contact or hearing breath graze nose hairs; watching pixelated impressions of eyebrows bumble across smudged screens,  we strained to understand the meaning— the feeling behind words  arrested by spotty connections. so our capacity to understand grew.  in the open space,  6 inches around our bodies,  where pedestrians would have been abruptly changing direction. the open space in our armpits kindly trying not to face your nose on the subway. in these open spaces that had once been full, sensations erupted. i felt your fear and held it in my shoulder. you felt my gratitude and twisted it in your fingers. i will never forget  the first hug i felt through zoom.  as time wore on, the silence filled up with lovers quarrels, worries, frustrations, needs. neighbors, roommates, coworkers, family ...