D&F 11/13/22

It’s hygge season in the Shelley house. Snorri is cuddled-up on my blanket-covered lap, candles are glowing, and the simple joy of reading a book and listening to music fills my heart. Bike rides are chillier this time of year, but my thermal bibs are making a big difference. The only thing I don’t love about the fall and winter is the absurdly early sunset, as an afternoon and evening person. If only the farmers could release their stranglehold on our saving of daylight.

It’s likely you’ve heard about the twin failures of FTX and Twitter in the past week, so I won’t get into it, except to share that a Discord pal made this museum of good tweets to help us remember when the site wasn’t actively on fire. Maybe it’s time to embrace negativity or at least realism and focus on the ways we can help the current planet we’re on and avoid supporting the goons convinced there will be gazillions of sad digital people looking at digital ads in the far future. The internet might just change for the better.

Imagine the coolest name for a type of lizard. Ok, this is better. These “lasagna lizards” are big, too! Two feet of salamander. Dang.

This I’m reading a fantastic book about the failure of tech and transportation policy to serve humanity instead of fostering an unsustainable capitalist system that enshrines the wealth of a small number of old white people. The more I learn about how zoning and city planning were decimated by folks like Robert Moses, the more determined I am to see safe, walkable, human-scale cities become the norm again. One day we can eradicate the scourge of the privately owned car, and make health and pedestrian safety a priority.

I’m also reading a fictionalized version of Wittgenstein’s life, which has me a lot less riled-up. I was somewhat obsessed with Wittgenstein for a period of time in my 20s (I blame David Foster Wallace), and read Ray Monk’s biography a couple times. There’s something fascinating about such a sad, singularly focused man with an un-scratch-able itch to find the limits of language for philosophy. I wonder if he’d live in a different time, and felt less tortured by his queerness and sense of misplaced duty if he could’ve been happier. I’d like to think one can be determined enough to have a strong philosophical bent, while still staying happy enough to enjoy every sunset, but perhaps I’m too optimistic!

Closing

I just watched Ad Astra again for the second time, and Prometheus for the umpteenth, and I guess I’m on a weird metaphysical space kick lately. The fall is a thoughtful season, just as much as it’s one full of mead, mulled wine, and candlelit laughing with friends. In less than two weeks I turn 38, and despite a global pandemic, my 30s continue to be my best decade. I hope to say the same thing again about my 40s. Aging is a fun fact of life, but I don’t think it needs to be a sad one. Every year I’ve had more experiences and created more memories—I would love to look back fondly on my life in 40 or even 60 more years. I’m grateful that a combination of therapy and better relationships got me to this place. May your years be as kind, space cowgirls~

D&F 11/13/22

Links

Closing