A famine of common sense and courage can only bring about a glut of cowardice and lunacy. That’s just the way the world works. Starve reason, feed the unreasonable. Take a look around, we all know it. Everything that was solid has been diluted. All the touchstones, shifted. All the rules eroded. Anything that was thought to be a biological certainty or a moral aspiration is now held up as evidence of bigotry and hateful ignorance.
The craven desire for both epistemic certainty and an "other" to project our shadow onto is creating a sickeningly mechanistic Tower af Babel.
I very much agree with your sentiment. One can't help but see the upstream cause of the absurdities you highlighted, and our precarious situation at large, to be intimately related to our lack of connection. Our disconnection from other people. From place. From tradition. From ourselves. If all that meaningfully exists is a lonely "I" in a temporary meat machine, insanely neurotic safetyism and a childish interpretation of mean words as existential threats make total sense.
Perhaps things need to fall apart before our Machine illusions are shattered. Mass starvation in 1st world countries? Civil unrest? War? Fingers crossed things do not need to get too dark before the dawn.
Amen sister! Quickies to mention: 1. I subscribed after inentding to for months. I am just so grateful for your beautiful writing and the window into a most special way of life. And i cant lie -- even while hating tech im so thankful for a "connection" to you and i dont even actually know you (thats the power of a great writer.) 2. Cmon down to the American South for a nice vacation after the baby arrives and the farm work is complete (bwah ha ha farmwork "complete" what am I thinking?!) I am a transplant from NY having married a southern man by the grace of God. We were the freest, most open place in the world in the height of it. Now you see masks and know that person is ill (mentally or physically- who knows). The cities were stifling (hello acearage) but otherwise, it's the same. The same. When I'm online, read the news in my cities, I nearly lose it because life in the American south is still rich in love of family and simplicity. I thank heavens for my husband and this life of southern freedom and grit all day every day. Love to you and yours.
One of your best, I loved every word of it. And the last two sentences, a perfect fine point on your message for indeed nothing matters more. I’m grateful today as well for seeing your essay right before I hopped in the car, so I chose the audio version this time. A gift.
There are so many disturbing things going on in our world these days. Up here in Maine we are literally facing an existential threat with the government seeking to shut down our lobster fishery to save a whale that all admit will not benefit from the destruction of this way of life... not one whale has ever been documented as injured or killed by Maine lobster gear.
What an exasperating example of the uselessness and aimlessness of government bureaucracy, regulation, and political maneuvering to feed a narrative and interest groups.
It’s more than a way of life it’s a responsible and honest connection to nature, the past and to the feeding of generation after generation community after community. How do these people proceed, as they did with Covid, undeterred by logic reason or supportive data? How is this allows and tolerated? Where is the outrage?? It’s infuriating.
I will speak, I will raise my voice, I will donate and I will add this to the long list of things that I have taken on in the past two years. Because, ultimately, how can I not? Your essay speaks so directly to this today and I’m so grateful for it. Thank you again.❤️
Honestly, I have too many things to say in reply to this, too many different directions to go in. But earlier this year I wrote a small essay on the perils of limited speech (which may or may not ever see the light of day) and I'll share a paragraph from it since we had a bit of crossover in our thoughts.
"By censoring ideas in public discourse, and showing that expressing such ideas come with a price, this will encourages people to stay in their boxes. And eventually, when one is in a box long enough, when we keep an entire populace in a box for an extended period of time, one might come to believe that the box is the real world, that the shadows on the walls of the cave are reality. And if they are so inclined, some individuals might even cement the door closed so that there is absolutely no way for anyone or anything or any idea to make its way in and tell them otherwise."
Tara, your writing inspires me to continue showing up for the things that call to my own heart, that I am moved to speak about. Thank you. You continue to be a gift in my inbox.
Thank you. I am in total agreement with your thought-provoking words. I am not eloquent of speech but I do know right from wrong. Help me not be complicit in overlooking a wrong just because it upsets another and/or their view. That’s cowardice any way I slice it. Thank you again. I love being a part of your subscription. I was hesitant when I signed up and now I’m only grateful.
This was probably my favorite essays of yours to date (and that’s saying a lot, because they’re all my favorite). I struggle sometimes to put my thoughts and feelings to everything happening around me into words and time and time again, I read your words and I’m like “Yes, exactly that.”
I particularly liked hearing your thoughts on the current obsession with changing words describing biological sex. Or the attempt to eliminate it, I should add. As a mother of an 8 year old daughter, I worry so much about that narrative that her generation is growing up with, female erasure, and the confusing push for even young children to start identifying as “they”. It’s being taught (Encouraged! Pushed, even!) that it’s totally ok to identify as whatever you’d like, and if you don’t “fit” the sex you were born into (or even if you do) you should just be a “they”. And what boggles my mind is that parents see nothing wrong with this. Children don’t see anything wrong with it because it’s all they know and all they’re taught. But it’s beyond confusing. I hate that I’m considered narrow-minded or discriminatory, hateful even, to think these things. It’s scary to speak up about it, especially where I live. I have spoken up about many things these past few years, but this narrative is tough for me to have the courage to voice how I really feel, especially where I live. I can only hope that by teaching my daughter what is true and what is right, that she will always be unwaveringly proud and confident of her womanhood.
👏 👏 👏 yes Tara. Very well said , and exactly what I have been thinking about lately too. You have encouraged me. I have been speaking up and out , since this whole Covid began ,but I get so angry with it and need to remember to show and speak with love. I shake my head in unbelief how blind people are every day. Thank you
I was so interested to hear what you thought of the concert because I really used to like her but it seems a lot of the art community are captured in that way and I am very disappointed. Thank you being out there and standing in your convictions. There are a few people who have stayed true and allowed others to not feel so alone and isolated! To me it feels like there is almost a desperation to much of it now and I’m hoping the chinks will burst out!
Oh Tara, This essay is brilliant, spot on and inspired. It’s our foundation in spirit and truth as individuals that matters today and tomorrow, and you have explained how that should work so very well. God has blessed you my friend -
That you, Tara, for a great essay. Thank you also for the link to Matthias Desmet' interview with Ivor Cummins. If you haven't seen it, I also recommend his interview with Tucker Carlson - truly edifying and inspiring.
Well done Tara ... well done. We had a very similar conversation to this one yesterday while having our morning coffee. We are definitely on the same page and are constantly shaking our heads at the theatre that is being played out around us.
Oh dear lady I could kiss you. And squeeze you in a big hug. Thank you for articulating so eloquently the boiling irritation and words I’ve been trying to find these past few years. Yes yes yes.
The craven desire for both epistemic certainty and an "other" to project our shadow onto is creating a sickeningly mechanistic Tower af Babel.
I very much agree with your sentiment. One can't help but see the upstream cause of the absurdities you highlighted, and our precarious situation at large, to be intimately related to our lack of connection. Our disconnection from other people. From place. From tradition. From ourselves. If all that meaningfully exists is a lonely "I" in a temporary meat machine, insanely neurotic safetyism and a childish interpretation of mean words as existential threats make total sense.
Perhaps things need to fall apart before our Machine illusions are shattered. Mass starvation in 1st world countries? Civil unrest? War? Fingers crossed things do not need to get too dark before the dawn.
Thanks for your writing ❤
Amen sister! Quickies to mention: 1. I subscribed after inentding to for months. I am just so grateful for your beautiful writing and the window into a most special way of life. And i cant lie -- even while hating tech im so thankful for a "connection" to you and i dont even actually know you (thats the power of a great writer.) 2. Cmon down to the American South for a nice vacation after the baby arrives and the farm work is complete (bwah ha ha farmwork "complete" what am I thinking?!) I am a transplant from NY having married a southern man by the grace of God. We were the freest, most open place in the world in the height of it. Now you see masks and know that person is ill (mentally or physically- who knows). The cities were stifling (hello acearage) but otherwise, it's the same. The same. When I'm online, read the news in my cities, I nearly lose it because life in the American south is still rich in love of family and simplicity. I thank heavens for my husband and this life of southern freedom and grit all day every day. Love to you and yours.
Ps. I tried reading the Nation article. I got to the phrase “ossified and alienated familial relations that make capitalism possible.”
Then I went and made my husband a meatloaf sandwich.
Tara,
One of your best, I loved every word of it. And the last two sentences, a perfect fine point on your message for indeed nothing matters more. I’m grateful today as well for seeing your essay right before I hopped in the car, so I chose the audio version this time. A gift.
There are so many disturbing things going on in our world these days. Up here in Maine we are literally facing an existential threat with the government seeking to shut down our lobster fishery to save a whale that all admit will not benefit from the destruction of this way of life... not one whale has ever been documented as injured or killed by Maine lobster gear.
What an exasperating example of the uselessness and aimlessness of government bureaucracy, regulation, and political maneuvering to feed a narrative and interest groups.
It’s more than a way of life it’s a responsible and honest connection to nature, the past and to the feeding of generation after generation community after community. How do these people proceed, as they did with Covid, undeterred by logic reason or supportive data? How is this allows and tolerated? Where is the outrage?? It’s infuriating.
I will speak, I will raise my voice, I will donate and I will add this to the long list of things that I have taken on in the past two years. Because, ultimately, how can I not? Your essay speaks so directly to this today and I’m so grateful for it. Thank you again.❤️
Honestly, I have too many things to say in reply to this, too many different directions to go in. But earlier this year I wrote a small essay on the perils of limited speech (which may or may not ever see the light of day) and I'll share a paragraph from it since we had a bit of crossover in our thoughts.
"By censoring ideas in public discourse, and showing that expressing such ideas come with a price, this will encourages people to stay in their boxes. And eventually, when one is in a box long enough, when we keep an entire populace in a box for an extended period of time, one might come to believe that the box is the real world, that the shadows on the walls of the cave are reality. And if they are so inclined, some individuals might even cement the door closed so that there is absolutely no way for anyone or anything or any idea to make its way in and tell them otherwise."
Tara, your writing inspires me to continue showing up for the things that call to my own heart, that I am moved to speak about. Thank you. You continue to be a gift in my inbox.
Thanks for being brave and honest and willing to speak it aloud. I will, too.
Thank you. I am in total agreement with your thought-provoking words. I am not eloquent of speech but I do know right from wrong. Help me not be complicit in overlooking a wrong just because it upsets another and/or their view. That’s cowardice any way I slice it. Thank you again. I love being a part of your subscription. I was hesitant when I signed up and now I’m only grateful.
This was probably my favorite essays of yours to date (and that’s saying a lot, because they’re all my favorite). I struggle sometimes to put my thoughts and feelings to everything happening around me into words and time and time again, I read your words and I’m like “Yes, exactly that.”
I particularly liked hearing your thoughts on the current obsession with changing words describing biological sex. Or the attempt to eliminate it, I should add. As a mother of an 8 year old daughter, I worry so much about that narrative that her generation is growing up with, female erasure, and the confusing push for even young children to start identifying as “they”. It’s being taught (Encouraged! Pushed, even!) that it’s totally ok to identify as whatever you’d like, and if you don’t “fit” the sex you were born into (or even if you do) you should just be a “they”. And what boggles my mind is that parents see nothing wrong with this. Children don’t see anything wrong with it because it’s all they know and all they’re taught. But it’s beyond confusing. I hate that I’m considered narrow-minded or discriminatory, hateful even, to think these things. It’s scary to speak up about it, especially where I live. I have spoken up about many things these past few years, but this narrative is tough for me to have the courage to voice how I really feel, especially where I live. I can only hope that by teaching my daughter what is true and what is right, that she will always be unwaveringly proud and confident of her womanhood.
👏 👏 👏 yes Tara. Very well said , and exactly what I have been thinking about lately too. You have encouraged me. I have been speaking up and out , since this whole Covid began ,but I get so angry with it and need to remember to show and speak with love. I shake my head in unbelief how blind people are every day. Thank you
Good God. Perfect timing while I ghost yet another doctor who will not respect my polite decline of a booster.
I was so interested to hear what you thought of the concert because I really used to like her but it seems a lot of the art community are captured in that way and I am very disappointed. Thank you being out there and standing in your convictions. There are a few people who have stayed true and allowed others to not feel so alone and isolated! To me it feels like there is almost a desperation to much of it now and I’m hoping the chinks will burst out!
Oh Tara, This essay is brilliant, spot on and inspired. It’s our foundation in spirit and truth as individuals that matters today and tomorrow, and you have explained how that should work so very well. God has blessed you my friend -
That you, Tara, for a great essay. Thank you also for the link to Matthias Desmet' interview with Ivor Cummins. If you haven't seen it, I also recommend his interview with Tucker Carlson - truly edifying and inspiring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZltdPfal5x0
Well done Tara ... well done. We had a very similar conversation to this one yesterday while having our morning coffee. We are definitely on the same page and are constantly shaking our heads at the theatre that is being played out around us.
Oh dear lady I could kiss you. And squeeze you in a big hug. Thank you for articulating so eloquently the boiling irritation and words I’ve been trying to find these past few years. Yes yes yes.