Existence is Resistance
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Content Warning: Today's email mentions a friend's death by suicide.
Hey y'all,
Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of a friend of mine. I was both her friend and mentor - she had been a heroin addict when she and I first met. Over the next few years, she would achieve sobriety, reunite with her kids, fall in love, and find meaningful work with the nonprofit I founded, working to help other addicts get clean. . We knew some of the same sorts of things.
She killed herself a year ago yesterday. A few days before, she had called while I was in a meeting. I didn't take the call, intending to call her back. I forgot, of course, because I am a chaos muppet with depression and ADHD. And of course, I have wondered endlessly whether I could have said something during that call to change the course of events, even if I know rationally that suicide is always a personal choice.
We have all lost a lot in the last few years. More than a million of us dead from COVID in just the USA. Many of us lost careers and homes and relationships in the aftermath. Plans changed, and hopes and dreams were dashed. I know someone who scrimped and saved for years to open her dream restaurant, planning to the minutest detail. They opened in February 2020.
Yeah.
To be still making things, creating art, living and laughing, and even thriving amid all the collective sorrow surrounding us feels like sacrilege at times. And yet.
I have participated in well over a hundred funerals (not an exaggeration - remember, I was pastor to a faith community made up of homeless folks and addicts for a dozen years), and a thing I hear a lot is about what the dead person would have wanted.
"Mary would want us to do X," they say, usually as a justification for their continuing to do X. But Mary doesn't want anything. Mary is dead. The dead do not want things. They do not have claims on our living.
It is for us to decide how we move forward. The hard work of living, laughing, and loving is for us to do - those of us who are still here. It's as if a heavy curtain is trying to fall on us, and we are holding it up above our heads, arms aching, somewhat trembly, but still here.
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." - Albert Camus
Existence, as they say, is resistance.
Writing
There are cyclical seasons to my writing. In other words, I often find that my writing in December one year is a lot like the things I write about in December of another year. It's never planned, it just works out that way - I guess I'm just a seasonal sort of guy.
But sometimes, it's ridiculous how well it tracks.
Like, yesterday I published this post -Somewhere along the line, we lost our way. - about how writing is magic, and the muse shows up when you do. Last year this week, I wrote this wrap-up of my 30-day series on gratitude, and similar themes emerged. And this post I wrote a year ago today about hope being a choice obviously comes from the same place that the short essay above does.
ETC
As we old-school bloggers are well into our fifties, nostalgia is inevitable. Here is a list of resources for we who refuse to let go.
I haven't seen an honest-to-God blogroll in ages. Here you go.
An RSS search engine. Squeee!
A Yahoo-esque blog directory of nearly 1,000 active blogs!
If you want to know how to get blogging yourself, here is an excellent guide.
And Jason Kottke, who has been blogging unabated since 1998, took six months or so off but is now back.
And unrelated to blogging, but firmly in the nostalgia camp - I learned you can watch episodes of the original Equalizer show from the 80s on NBC's website. It was so good, and I find myself still remembering words and phrasing as I rewatch them. I never missed an episode of this when I was a kid.
Thank you
I'm increasingly unsure what to do with this space. I originally conceived it when I was publishing many things each week to let people know about what I was writing. But these days, I am lucky to get one blog post up each week. Instead, these days this letter feels all too often like the tales of a guy who is behind, frazzled, and frustrated.
Like all my projects, this newsletter is a reader-supported publication paid for by my members. I can only do it because people like you buy me a cup of coffee or forward this letter to someone else. And if someone did forward this to you, you can get your own subscription here.
Take care,
HH