NOTE… This was previously posted to my personal Facebook wall. I’m sharing it here because that FB post got some neat comments and a few shares, so I thought it was worth passing along. I’m not sharing those comments here as I haven’t asked permission, but the original post and comments are public.
🙋🏼♀️ It's the middle of the night and I'm here posting on Facebook because whatever. Because of all the things.
Because we're in a strange and extended moment in time and in history and it's a lot to take in.
It's a lot to process. It's a lot to live in the middle of. It's a lot to figure out your way through. 🗺️🧭
I don't know how to post on this [Facebook] platform anymore. I see people writing big long screeds about whatever and getting a bazillion followers but I'm not in the mood to write big long screeds about newsy stuff.
I used to write big picture security analysis and other stuff but that was all meant to be a part of the big prevention mechanisms to stop us from getting to this moment.
Now what is there to write… about security analysis, and big picture risk?
Good heavens this risk analysis landscape we're in jumped the shark way back in January. 🦈
📺 And if you're wondering what "jumped the shark" means it's apparently when you're out of regular and perhaps more believable TV episode material and you need to have episode stars do crazy things like do big jumps over sharks… which is apparently what happened in the Happy Days series that later people talked about as when the show started to run out of material that led to reliable and positive TV ratings. I'm not summarizing it well but it's better than nothing.
📺 Anyway this TV series we're living in jumped the shark before January was even over so it's a little weird to navigate.
I'm not telling you anything you don't know or aren't living yourself.
For me I keep making plans and working on projects... and then the plans sort of get undermined by the state of things and also just life stuff... and the projects get off track and everything sort of careens all over the place
...And that's just how things work now.
✏️ Anyway why am I writing all this in the middle of the night?
Because I got untethered this week. Off track. Ungrounded. Lost some anchors or something.
I've been able to not have that happen a lot over the past few months so it really throws me off when it does happen; when I lose my senses of sanity, purpose, and grounding.
📒 I did a post the other day about how I got off track and into a funk and was finding ways to get my wits about me. A key takeaway point in that post is that I recognized I was not in a good place... and took some steps to turn it around.
That helped. Then I've done more stuff that is helping more.. Including some unexpected family time that was very nice.
I've been talking with people about how we deal just in general with news. One of the people in these conversations said they are very intentional about the "inputs" they allow.
🗯️🗨️💭 Which that led to an important conversation with people I'm close to about what we're doing to get or track information about what's happening up in this country, and also about how we can very specifically not get that information if we don't need the specifics for anything we might be acting on, or if the specifics are outside of our sphere of influence.
I know a lot of us are talking about these kinds of things but I suppose I'm writing about it because it's worth considering; perhaps in depth. Perhaps very intentionally. Which is more than just making casual decisions about avoiding news. It's really going over it and making specific decisions.
✔️ But it's not just the specifics of how you get news that's important.
✔️ It's who you're talking to and how.
✔️ It's creating the space for the connections and the community.
Like taking the time for some family stuff. Like taking the time to connect.
In my world, a friend and I have put some very specific intention into building connections with the people who live around us, with new work on it since spring. 🌱
It's a thing that has a bit of a ramp up... especially when you don't know people and you're trying to suss out who's who and what they're all about.
But then as you get a little further along with knowing new people you can have unexpected moments where you sort of take things to the next level. Where you trust each other more. Where you share specifics about the day or the moment or things you're working on or community things that you might have all been a part of any given day.
🌳 Anyway, in the last couple of days I've had a couple of these interactions that have just been unexpected and yet very good for my soul. In fact — kind of delightful.
Which is unexpected in the midst of all this.
But it's also totally expected.
Because building community and connection are absolutely critical essential key parts of navigating all of this crap that we're dealing with now. 🗝️ It's the stuff.
⭐ The people around us are who we are going to be going through all of this with.⭐
The deeper and wider and more robust those connections are the more they will help us figure all of this stuff out and just get through it and maybe even be delighted from time to time.
Or heartened. Or inspired. Or feel cared for. Or thought of. Or whatever. Or maybe we can do that for other people.
So then after I did a few things myself to find my way out of the funk, my connections with people helped me find the rest of the way out of it.
Not that this is a permanent state — being out of the funk. Not that I don't need help staying out of the funk. From me and from others.
It's an ongoing process. I'm sure that's true for all of us.
I just wanted to write here in the middle of the night how powerful it can be. ❤️ How heartening it can be. How deeply good for the soul.
And how much we need that stuff in this moment. How much we need to remember our humanity. How much we need to remember how to connect. And how good it is for us.
I don't think we're here to be mean. I don't think we're here to just look after ourselves and to survive.
I think we're here to take care of each other and to look after one another and to help each other be happy and healthy and flourishing and thriving.
⭐ We do that with connection and community. ⭐
We are tribal beings. We are community beings. We are meant to live life together with other people.
It will help us to put that way more forward in our lives and in what we do everyday.
It's the stuff.
That’s a lot of why Fierce Community is doing zooms through the fall to talk about connection, community, and other stuff that can help us find ways through this era.
Be safe and be well. Look after people as you can. Including yourself.
Onward and forward.
🔦⚡❤️
Join a Zoom for connection & community
Vanessa Burnett is the director at Fierce Community. This nonprofit work promotes civic engagement through connection, community, creativity, leadership, empowerment, alliances, and resilience in an era of rising instability and societal disruption. Vanessa is a social entrepreneur, advisor, and empower-er with a systems-level understanding of the pieces and parts that modern society needs in order to survive. She has over 25 years experience in resilience-building, civic engagement, coalition-building, critical infrastructure, systems thinking, big disasters, catastrophes, wildland fire, emergency management, incident management, land management, park rangering, homeland security, continuity of operations (COOP), continuity of government (COG), technology innovation, public communication, and disaster information sharing.
Email people@fiercecommunity.com to set up a conversation. This Substack channel does not knowingly use AI.
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