Rehab for the living

“this site is so weird. how do I know how many internet points I won? how do I know what to be outraged about? I feel like I could just put it down at any moment and go to bed at a reasonable hour, and then check it again tomorrow if I felt like it, in a healthy way. what the fuck” https://gizmodo.com/how-to-join-mastodon-twitter-alternative-elon-musk-1849739031

Functional, purposeful writing is like giving birth to a demon. Conjuring code, summoning syntax to perform a task  in ears and minds you don’t know, will never meet. Words wrung from the heart, on the other hand, condensed from truth, of inspiration, which tumble like a feather, in their time, of their own rhythm, may fall gently upon a page. These other purposeful words, which would rise and fall a city, a country, a world, feels like some crude and unholy power, for it goes to war with that which is, trying to bend that closer to that which I perceive it ought to. And tho I may act with the interests of the world as a whole, it is still me, raising arms, against the world as it is. But such also is the work of teaching; to capture light and hold it in a bulb, for the learner to turn off and on at will, to use for their own delight and aid. Yet still a dim reflection of the sun, or any greater light, still, perhaps, not as perfect as sleeping at night, and rising at first dawn, to move in the rhythm of the land. And yet, and yet, it has its function, its purpose. And in a world of injustice, suffering, on the clifftop of chaos and climate catastrophe, poetry seems a luxury.

Us, lucky beings, alive today, get to be part of the generation that solves this and turns it around. It’s do or die. We're generation hero, as there’s no meaningful, non-genocidal future where we aren’t.

Plaster dust fell on his face and this time Cusack knew the shaking was a real thing. His eyes opened on an aftershock and the quite unmistakable movement of the wall overcame the dizzyness from the raki, whose empty bottle he still cradled like his lost love. More dust fell from the ceiling, and coughing, he lunged himself up  towards the balcony where the din of traffic and shouts made a ceaseless roar. The streets in every direction were congealed thick with cars and crates, etuks and scooters, the humans fast flowing into any available space as they fled buildings holding crates and bulging sack and kids and pets and prized possessions aloft. The shouts were louder than the car horns briefly, and then, a crack, and another tremor. He checked his display: he he was in a building that could withstand four-to-five times worse than this, but no-one really knew what was coming next. He had 300 unread alerts, 15 warnings and two more copies of the code red alert which he’d already seen the night before. “Get to the highest ground, immediately”.