Written to a friend:
I am aboard a train heading home. I got up at 6 this morning so I could get a newsletter out before I left. The election seems to have made me realize I need to work hard to do what I can to...
I'm not sure. I am trying to sort out my brain. I feel like the election was a reset but I don't know what for just yet. I do know that I can understand why people voted the way they did because we're in a time where people value their feelings more than their rational side.
Both of mine are always within me. Every day I have to get information out because it's what I do. I make my living doing basic research all of the time. I have a passion that I don't always understand but looking back through my entire life I can see how I got to be me.
I wish I could explain that more and I guess I will have to. I will just say that because I have documented my own life while also documenting the community I live in, I've managed to create a brain that feels more like AI. I'm not sure I'm a real person anymore.
Yet of course I am. I'm the result of all of the other days I've lived. I have tried to live a life where I am in charge of how I filter information, and not the onslaught of messages.
I got a newsletter out today that wasn't the one I expected. I needed something from the city to proceed (a presentation) and as I waited for it, I wrote three other stories. I managed to keep my streak alive by publishing eighteen consecutive days of content in the feed.
For eight of those days, I was far away from home. But also home, because my parents were there and I got to just be with them. I needed that and they needed that. I don't like that they are not close by anymore, but I also accept that things must change sometimes and you adapt.
Five and a half years ago I lost my children. All of the emotion from that is gone now, mostly. It is what it is. I do think a lot about what could have been, but being in the here and now works.
Since I got on the train in Trenton, I've been sifting through emails from mid-August. I am always looking to go through what I have written. I feel like I may have said this before.
I'm sitting facing rear because it was the first open seat. I spent eight days with my parents helping them be comfortable while they wait to die. They didn't plan well, to be honest, but here we are. I go up to support my sister when she goes away. I'm very grateful to be able to travel.
I would have preferred a different outcome.
But here we are. It is what it is.
I really hope you know how writing you throughout history finds me a place of balance of sorts. I can't explain that really, either, but when I go and see the things meant for you to read, I feel like I'm connected to a life that is still alive.
If AI might be able to think, why can't we? Why can't we find a way to convince people that they are alive too, and that being alive is a thing you do by being present and aware of what you can do? Everyone sits and watches television and doom-scrolls and what can you to disrupt that?
If this is the dystopia and some of us are aware, how can we add more life to those who are entranced by the beat of others?
Deep down, all of the journalism just serves a deeper purpose. I'm doing what I do in order to try to help as many humans as possible realize that two things are true:
- You are an individual
- Your individuality has limits that other individuals will exploit to get you to serve them
I come back from this trip with much more clarity about what I am supposed to do. I am meant to preserve democracy by continuing to write about it, no matter what happens. When you look at these things local, there's a lot that can be gleaned.
In any case, gosh. One more hour after Culpeper. I'm going to go back to trying to have fun but had this sense that if I write here, my future may be changed. I will know I'll go back and see if I made any sense.
And so on.
Hope you are well. Thank you for allowing me to write.
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