I intentionally did not make any commitments when I started this project, knowing that my interest & ability would shift over time. The past 3 months, my time & energy has been spent on the following activities, leaving very little for other pursuits:
My job (ugh)
My volunteer board service
Traveling to see family & friends
Grieving the 4 year anniversary of the pandemic
Spending time in the woods before the summer bugs fully emerge
During this time, I continued my apocalypse studies, & I hope that I’ll make more posts this year about the books I have read, but right now that prospect feels daunting. However, I’m feeling inspired to share a few things!
I found the thesis statement for these musings:
I usually don’t relate to scorpio things, but this one was too perfect!
This week I completed the book Saving Time by Jenny Odell (her first book, How To Do Nothing, is central to my lifestyle), & I want to share a concept that feels connected to these musings. In an interview about the book on the podcast Factually! with Adam Conover, Jenny discussed the Tagalog phrase ‘bahala na’ - translated as ‘fuck it’ & ‘whatever happens, happens.’
“A positive response to uncertainty - it doesn’t conform to our understanding of either giving up or going forth, it’s kind of like both. I don’t have control over this situation, but because I accept that, I can actually observe what is here, & I will bring all the resources I do have to the situation in a highly improvisational & engaged way.”
Described as a uniquely Filipino attitude because of living near volatile volcanoes
“Either being blindly optimistic or resting in despair are both a way of pulling away from the actual details of the situation as it’s unfolding.”
I immediately connected this concept to another presented in I Want A Better Catastrophe by Andrew Boyd (see previous post for more on this book) - Hózhó: lifeway of the Diné people
“In Sacred Clowns, the first in a series of Tony Hillerman novels set in the four-corners region of America’s Southwest, fictional Navajo detective Jim Chee explains it: ‘Example: terrible drought, crops dead, sheep dying. Spring dried out. No water. The Hopi, or the Christian, maybe the Moslem, they pray for rain. The Navajo has the proper ceremony done to restore himself to harmony with the drought. The system is designed to recognize what’s beyond human power to change, & then to change the human’s attitude to be content with the inevitable.’”
“Hózhó does not counsel capitulation or surrender; it counsels creative, resilient, harmonious adaptation.”
One last connection: SHAPE CHANGE (Parable of the Sower/Talents by Octavia Butler)