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[FBT] on Complacency and Conferences

Maybe I’m successful

My brain told itself that I was basically going to keep puttering along with nothing much to think about or say for the foreseeable future. It convinced itself that for all the effort in making the world a better place, it would, indeed, never bother to get its everliving shit together. The stuff I do and say doesn’t matter. I’m just slowly fading into oblivion like that dying star I’ve talked about many times before. My brain was, for the last several months, very keen to explain that I had peaked. I am, let’s face it, a middle-aged* woman and I work in tech, so I promise the stats are against me.

Then last week I wrote about Musk and his Nazi Salute** and someone sent me ten separate emails to verbally abuse me. I replied that he was unhinged (he really was), removed him from this newsletter list and spent entirely too much time on the weekend feeling… a mix of fear, incredulity and utter disgust. It’s not like I haven’t dealt with trolly behaviour before, but geez, it’s still shocking when I manage to incur the wrath.

It’s messed up, but this was a reminder that what I do matters. It matters that I say stuff out loud, even if sometimes people can’t handle reality and come and yell at me. It matters that we try. I wish that I didn’t need external validation. But sometimes I need a little reminder that I can still make the world a better place in the face of growing stupid.

“Complacency is a sin, pure and simple.” Another Nick Cave quote from Faith, Hope and Carnage.

On Monday, WAO found out that we were successful in getting a big project with a well-known human rights NGO. We spent a lot of time going through the procurement process, and it’s a good project. Something that matters. I am very, very excited to be able to help.

*Middle-aged is when exactly? Because what if they put my brain in a jar without my consent and I live to be a thousand? Once, I did a talk on a big stage and the guy before me was talking about how tech was going to help us live to be a 150. When he was done and it was my turn, the first thing I said was “Good god I can’t believe anyone would want to live to be 150. I would never… Today I’m going to rant about KPIs” and then I ranted randomly about KPIs for a moment before starting my actual talk about stories and connections and activism.

**Two activist collectives in Germany projected that image of Musk with the word “Heil” onto the side of the Tesla factory just outside of Berlin. You can see the image here. They’ve been charged by the German government for displaying forbidden Nazi symbols. So, to be clear, according to the German government, Musk was absolutely throwing up a Nazi Salute, full stop.

Maybe I’m oblivious

A doodle a day Lesson 6: Every doodle is perfect for its own reasons.

I listened to a great episode of the Rest is Politics about the US destroying its soft power around the world in an ill-advised spectacle that will never be repaired. There are some bits that might make you feel better about everything happening and some bits that won’t. Really worth a listen if, like me, you’ve spent the last two weeks avoiding/not avoiding the news and trying to intellectually understand this shitshow.

The whole thing about being a lifelong learner is that it becomes increasingly more fascinating how little we know about anything. It’s incredible how blind we are to all sorts of things.

Like hairdresser conferences. A few weeks ago I got my haircut and the three hairdressers in the salon were talking about the conference they were going to on the weekend. This was mind-blowing to me for the simple fact that I had never, not once in my life, thought about hairdressers going to a conference. There are loads of professions that I haven’t thought about that probably have conferences. What about the elevator repair people conference? How many people there are named “Otis”? Watchmakers, chemical engineers, cheese manufacturers. The other day I walked past an arm wrestling club(!?) and realised that there is probably an arm wrestling world championship. There’s the Air Guitar World Championships too (Canada won last year ;)

There is an entire world of communities that exist outside of our own communities. Our connections aren’t identified just through race or locale or politics. Our connections aren’t even just to other humans. There’s a lot to learn by contemplating the crows or fixing the antique lathe. There’s a lot more to the world than the stuff “they” are shoving down our throats.

Lifelong learning isn’t just about skill development, you know? It’s also about becoming aware to the world around you and pondering the implications of what you haven’t thought about before. There are so many thoughts you haven’t thought.

Maybe I need help?

Over the past weeks, I have given a couple of pep talks to my people who are struggling with this moment in history. I am not really an optimistic person, but I try to remind people that at the end of the day, we all have a day. We will continue to have days until we don’t have another day. That’s it. In the meantime the best we can do is help our brains and bodies have a good enough day today. So if today you need to protect your brain from the information onslaught, then today is a day to go outside, make art, talk to a friend, stop the scroll.

Hit reply if you want, and for the first time ever in this newsletter, here’s a warning: If you harass me, I will not like it. It’s mean. I will talk shit about you to people who are not you.

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