Vague Undercurrents · 11:14pm Jun 17th, 2020
I'm not dead. I'm working on a thing. Several things. But one of them will hopefully go up soon. Soon-ish.
There's been a lot of talk lately about all kinds of things and I keep trying to gather my thoughts and then new things happen. The opening lines of the previous blog have only become more acutely real in the weeks since, but I fear I'm not being a very good wizard. I'm struggling to find any words of wisdom to help even myself get through everything, let alone others.
Just so there's absolutely no doubt where I stand, I support everything PresentPerfect, and iisaw, and Aquaman, and many others here have said in recent weeks. Black Lives Matter, Trans rights are human rights, and be proud for Pride Month.
There's a fun thing I like to do sometimes called the Sortes Vergilianae, where you flip to a random line of the Aeneid and read it as your fortune. The Aeneid is such a wild piece of literature that no matter where you end up it's practically guaranteed to be something interesting. So I'm gonna try that right now and see what happens.
By this sign the great lord of Olympus has decreed
that you should bear off honors far from all the rest.
Here, you'll have a gift from old Anchises himself.
A mixing-bowl, richly engraved, the proud trophy
that Thracian Cisseus one day gave my father.
A memento of his host, a pledge of his affection.
Huh. That one's a thinker. Anchises is Aeneas's father, who died on the journey, and this is at the funeral games in his honor. The giving of gifts in friendship and as prizes in a contest. Remembrance, and the passing of the old to the new. Rituals, crowds, and the bonds between people. Always relevant themes, and especially today.
I hope you're all well. Take care of yourselves out there.
-Daedalus.
I've been thinking it's time for another round of more concrete journals. A whole lot of people have spoken up, and then the fervor died down, but the fight hasn't. We can't just rest on our laurels.
Take care of yourself too. Looking forward to seeing what's causing those vague undercurrents.
I have to read the Aeneid again... It's weird, and weird sort of hits my happy buttons lately. Maybe it's reassurance that the world is too chaotic to control, and I shouldn't feel bad about failing.
5287331
I wish I knew what to do. I've given what I can to various charities involved in direct action. I've shot my mouth off and alienated a lot (more) people. I wanted to mask up and go to the march in Fresno, but my wife told me she'd nail my feet to the floor if I tried leaving the house. (I'm old, I've got 75% lung function and half a trachea, so if I get Covid, I'm dead.)
Aaaand, even that seems like useless whining and I nearly just deleted it all.
I just wish I could do something that didn't feel completely ineffectual.
5287536
Thank you for speaking out. I admire that a great deal and I kinda feel like a coward for not having done so myself outside of comments. I know how hard it is to risk alienating people, even though I also know that losing toxic readers is no big loss.
And boy do I know how hard it is to talk about it, and to find something to do about it that doesn't feel useless.
5287331
The 24-hour news cycle is a curse.
5287381
Thanks. Honestly, I could publish it right now, but because I always make things too complicated for myself I have to write something else first to my satisfaction to go with it. Because probably a lot of people could use a reminder before picking up a certain long-waiting story again.
5287536
Honestly, that's all anyone should expect you to do, even yourself. You can't protest safely because of the pandemic; it's not whining, it's facts. You've just got to use whatever platform you have to make sure people don't forget the other major issue of right now.