stay woke

Enshitification is a form of death we're actively mourning but barely allowed to acknowledge in the day to day. Communities are dying because their economic prospects are being siphoned off by corporations whose "infinite growth forever" mindset is called "cancer" when cells do it.

Exploitation as a form of dying, using you up until you're discarded and fully dead. And even then companies will find any way to keep using you. Jealously holding onto your spirit in perpetual servitude that you can no longer resist.

There are those left behind in the hollowed out wastes of small towns, and the hallowed out wastes of the city. People living off dreams because a reality that isn't hell is unattainable to them.

And the only thing that makes it better, the only thing, is the connections we make with each other. The warmth of the mundane everyday love for those around you (of all forms), the kindness of listening to what people want and need and then just helping them. Not for a reward, not a transaction, but because the work of loving others is there to do.

To meet people and be with them and try to understand. Even if we don't like who someone has become, understanding how they got there. Maybe that person needs to be someone else's problem, but we can all do the work of spotting the forks in the road and helping give better directions to the next passer-by in our lives. People aren't inherently, immutably terrible, they just got turned around and cracked somewhere along the way. Repair is still possible.

But if we just go around lashing out at everything broken to break it more, nothing will ever get mended. Does it do any good or just feel good? It's so, so important to offer a hand instead of a fist. Nothing can grow by being beaten down, only nurtured. There are invasive weeds whose growth needs to be stopped to protect every other plant, but you should still practice crop rotation, plant legumes for green fertilizer, and shelter the winter soil with dead leaves.