love in the time of science

Harpies who can't write or type or open most containers with their wings. Werewolves who worry about hurting someone if they get overstimulated at the wrong time. Minotaurs with digestive systems and metabolisms which require grazing throughout the day, not the three big meals humans are used to.

Lamias who have to stay home in the evenings and during cold months to stay warm, otherwise their muscles stop working right and they get stranded. And they're sick of their human friends suggesting they get some kind of tail sweater. It wouldn't help, the problem is that their body doesn't produce enough heat to begin with, and anyways a tail garment would get in the way of their rectilinear locomotion, and there's no way a sweater would survive being walked on in the first place. It feels like they don't actually care about you being stuck at home whenever they go out, they just want to feel like it's not their fault they never see you.

You cannot optimise your way out of being human

You can take every supplement, superfood, and nootropic going, and you'll still have days when you're ill, when you're tired, when you make stupid mistakes for no good goddamn reason.

You can read every book on non-violent communication, or gentle parenting, you can go to therapy, and be ever so mindful about the people you fill your time with, and you're still going to experience conflict, and misunderstandings, and grief.

You can plan your schedule 24/7 in carefully calculated 3 minute increments to ensure maximum productivity, but that train will still be late, that project will still run over, you'll somehow still never get around to learning that language, or that instrument, or that sport.

You can do your cardio, and track your macros, you can carb-load, or keto, or whatever the fuck dumbass extreme diet is this week's fountain of youth. You can do crosswords, and sudoku, and keep up a 12-step nightly beauty routine, but you're still going to age. You're still going to live through the gradual dissolution of the self, both physical and mental - and that's if you're lucky.

There is no one right way to live your life. Everyone you look at who is somehow managing to live the life you imagine is perfect for you has sacrificed something important to you, or has resources you don't.

I get it. I do! This mortal coil is wrapped so tight around you that you can't breathe if you stop a moment and let yourself be aware of it. There is a book on the shelf in your local library right now that would change you as a person if you read it, but you never will, because it's one of a million and there just isn't enough time.

You are an animal, just electricity in meat. The product of millions of generations of 'just good enough'. Let yourself be that. Learn to be just good enough. Let yourself lie in a sunbeam like a cat. Let yourself search for small pieces of joy like a magpie. Feel every transcendent and wretched inch of your humanity and howl at the moon like a wolf when there's too much of you to fit inside your skin.