Trade-offs and balances. "For everything that is given, something else is taken." This is my instinct with regard to medicine's primitive, but ever-burgeoning attempt to "protect" the immune system from its job - negotiating hazards. Every prevented encounter with hazard - not a simulation of hazard, but real hazard - corresponds to a degree of competent function not attained. Life without risk is life without reward.
My cousin was in the Peace Corps in the early 80's, in Sierra Leone. She had some wonderful as well as scary stories. She's one of the few people I know with whom I can talk about alternative views of what is happening now. She is not firmly entrenched on a side. Thank you for this piece.
It reminds me a lot of Sophie Strand's writing, and Bayo Akomolafe's work. We have this ideal of control and predictability in colonized lands, but there's a wild/earth wisdom beyond anything we can control which we see as Covid keeps mutating and mutating. And I think it's made me realize the importance is in being really, truly, alive and connected while we're alive. Not in an over-hyped way like an addict feels, but deeply connected to our experiences where we aren't running from them or trying to "fix" them or judge them as acceptable and unacceptable.
New arts and old instincts
Trade-offs and balances. "For everything that is given, something else is taken." This is my instinct with regard to medicine's primitive, but ever-burgeoning attempt to "protect" the immune system from its job - negotiating hazards. Every prevented encounter with hazard - not a simulation of hazard, but real hazard - corresponds to a degree of competent function not attained. Life without risk is life without reward.
My cousin was in the Peace Corps in the early 80's, in Sierra Leone. She had some wonderful as well as scary stories. She's one of the few people I know with whom I can talk about alternative views of what is happening now. She is not firmly entrenched on a side. Thank you for this piece.
Two amazing writers in one family? Yes!!! This piece made me feel and think. I subscribed.
Love this piece, Mo.
It reminds me a lot of Sophie Strand's writing, and Bayo Akomolafe's work. We have this ideal of control and predictability in colonized lands, but there's a wild/earth wisdom beyond anything we can control which we see as Covid keeps mutating and mutating. And I think it's made me realize the importance is in being really, truly, alive and connected while we're alive. Not in an over-hyped way like an addict feels, but deeply connected to our experiences where we aren't running from them or trying to "fix" them or judge them as acceptable and unacceptable.