Everything Is Terrible. Here’s What’s Bringing Me Joy This Week.
Take two of these and call me in the morning.
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Do you remember the scene in The Neverending Story when Artax the horse couldn’t stop his wee equine brain from thinking dreadful thoughts and got sucked up by the swamp of sadness? Yeah, that’s kind of how I feel lately too. And I know what you’re going to say. You’re right. I’ve been doom scrolling so hard I actually made myself motion sick. Turns out that’s a thing you can do by the way. What kind of an idiot tweaks out their own vestibular system so it thinks it’s at sea while lying completely still under a duvet?
This kind of idiot.
It is obvious to me that unless someone drives a cannon straight up the hind end of everyone’s favorite Russian multi-hyphenate butcher-dictator-psychopath, finds a way to decarbonize global energy systems, or can eradicate COVID off the Earth faster than Ivanka will fold under questioning, we’re gonna’ be here for a while.
I can’t keep making myself sick and neither can you, frankly. I’ve found some tiny glimmers of joy over the last few weeks and I’d like to share them. I’m hoping that at least one of these will be interesting to you or that you’ll be inspired to find your own little flower among the dung heap.
But first, some rules. I picked things that I either watched, ate, listened to, or otherwise engaged with. There are plenty of things that I simply learned about that make me very happy too, like the existence of the all-women’s 4x4 Rally Jameel in Saudi Arabia which began just five years after females were granted the right to drive, but they don’t count since I did not directly engage with them. (Though, holy crap, I want to engage with that race, like, right now.)
So, let’s have a bit of fun, shall we?
The Ram Dass “Here and Now” Podcast
I kept hearing about Ram Dass and what a wonderful, loving being he was before he passed in 2019, but I had no idea who he was. I am admittedly late to the party on this one, but it’s not my fault. My family had two 50s and a 70s, so there was no way anyone was talking about ashrams and enlightenment around the dinner table. The only spirituality I grew up with…
