... mad world.

30 minutes after I sent my weekly letter on Januar 13, I watched an attempted coup live at the Capitol. Today I'm working on my weekly letter and I've got an impeachment vote livestream open in another browser.

...

And still we get up in the morning, do our thing. Some of us do our thing because we believe in it more than ever and we know how it fits into a grander scheme of working toward a vision for a better world.

And most of us probably do our thing because what else would we do? We’ve been doing it all year. Some days it feels good to work.

***

I went to a Zoom meeting with a business buddy yesterday. We meet every quarter to share goals and talk about why we set them, how we're progressing, and how they change.

He talked me through his Goals spreadsheet. He was only planning the first quarter of 2021, he said because annual goals felt a bit overwhelming. Seemed like a good plan. A tidy plan.

When it was my turn, I welled up. "Hey," I said pointing to the tears in my eyes. "I just do this now."

I do. I cry in front of people I normally wouldn’t have allowed to see me cry for reasons I can’t fully articulate. Because. Still processing.

"It doesn't mean anything bad, necessarily," I added. "The best thing to do is just let the tears run until they pass. That's the most supportive thing you can do."

"OK," he said. The tears passed as we continued talking.

***

We are living a (long) moment of pain linked to a moment of taboo-breaking. The adults have left the building. The rest of us stayed behind. Why?

Like I said… some of us do our thing because we believe in it more than ever and we know how it fits into a grander scheme of working toward a vision for a better world.

And the rest of us? What are we doing?

We're drained, we're traumatized, we're upended. But so few people are jaded. We're actually paying attention. I think that could be a hopeful sign.

I have some ideas about how to harness that jolt of attention. In between doom-scrolling sessions, I’ve been using it to propel my writing. I’ll save that for next week, though.

This letter just provides margin. Space to notice.

M

PS: If you have 5 minutes, turn off all the lights and listen to this song.