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Isn't doing nothing a kind of troublemaking?

When you have a campaign of death threatening and harming your neighbors and home, it is important to find grounding, and belief, whatever that may be, even in something as universal and solid as love and compassion.

Isn't doing nothing a kind of troublemaking?
Ce n'est pas la réalité.

In this issue:

  • Book Review
  • Remote Job Search Resources
  • Rattober

So, I read an exquisite novel recently, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2014). The story is set during the 1940s, during World War II in France and Germany.

A French girl is suddenly affected by blindness at a young age and her father is a locksmith at a natural history museum in Paris. The novel follows her, and several other illuminated characters, through the horrors of war and the beauty and puzzlement of being alive.

The writing is amazing, stellar and kaleidoscopic with vivid descriptions of how the girl experiences the world around her. The book will inspire you to write poetry. I loved Doerr's other book, Cloud Cuckoo Land but All the Light We Cannot See is a masterpiece.

From the book, this is a dialog between two characters who have lived together for a long time in the same house:

"Then help us."

"I don't want to make trouble, Madame."

"Isn't doing nothing a kind of troublemaking?"

"Doing nothing is doing nothing".

"Doing nothing is as good as collaborating."

It was striking reading such a poetic book about World War II and seeing today's headlines mirrored in the characters' trials in the novel.

What struck me in particular was the recruitment and conditioning of Nazi youth, the incompetence and disorganization and unbelievable violence of the German Nazi Party, and widespread death and destruction detaching the population from reality. Some people giving up, some people giving in and some people holding on until the very end.

I am not religious, but I am an existentialist to the extent I believe every life is precious and should be protected and celebrated.

There are many people who do not (this especially goes for Americans) understand their own mortality or the existential value of their own life.

And this makes me feel bad for everyone.

I understand some people believe in an afterworld, a world next. That this current world, the planet Earth, is doomed. In turn, this life doesn't matter.

I do not believe in the world next, I only believe in Earth, and this does not make me hopeless. This current and very real world is beautiful and worth saving and nurturing.

A periwinkle shell, no snail.

Excerpt from All The Light We Cannot See continued:

The wind gusts. In Marie-Laure's mind, it shifts and gleams, draws needles and thorns in the air. Silver then green then silver again.

"I know ways," says Madame Manec.

"What ways? Whom have you put your trust in?"

"You have to trust someone sometime."

"If your same blood doesn't run in the arms and legs of the person you're next to, you can't trust anything. And even then. It's not a person you wish to fight, Madame, it's a system. How do you fight a system?"

"You try."

Overtaking mainstream media channels, flooding the public with misinformation and illness, fucking up the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, removing jobs, and even promoting raw milk, were all tools used by the German Nazis to control and exterminate a population.

All the Light We Cannot See heavily involved the radio and how the radio played an instrumental role in the Allies winning World War II and also how it was a technology deployed by all powers. It reminded me of the internet today, how it can be used to send information and create communication for good or for very, very bad.

"Don't you want to be alive before you die?" – All The Light We Cannot See

When you have a campaign of death threatening and harming your neighbors and home, it is important to find grounding, and belief, whatever that may be, even in something as universal and solid as love and compassion. You need to believe that things will improve and get better, not by manifesting alone, but by not giving up, taking care of yourself and by helping yourself and others.

What happens right now matters, your actions day-to-day pay off one way or another. Surviving is hard and exhausting but it is necessary.

Luckily and unluckily, we have been here before and we still have each other.

A periwinkle snail on a green rock.

I am out of work, I am trying to find a job, it is extremely hard.

I have a lot of job search resources I should tap again. Here are some tools I've used before and will again.

I also made a spreadsheet of 700+ companies hiring remote work:

Remote Companies Hiring List

Everything is sudden lightning and thunder doom but we will survive this. I believe in you, and I believe in the power of love and collective action. Next time maybe I'll write about a book that was published more recently.

I am currently reading Louis Sachar's new book, The Magician of Tiger Castle, Luke O'Neil's new book, We Had it Coming and Other Fictions and Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire.

From Pests:

In Robert Sullivan's book Rats, he describes rats as "our mirror species, reversed but similar, thriving or suffering in the very cities where we do the same." Pests often bring into relief what we hate about ourselves - our greed, our stubbornness, our fear, and the way we treat the things we distain. They make us feel futile and powerless, yes. But they also show us the consequences of our own actions.

I have been trying to draw rats for Rattober, an alternative to "!nktober".

Rattober list of prompts.
Rattober prompts.

Dream Rat and Stinky Rat some of my best work.

Here is a recent mouse.

And here is the song that plays throughout the novel.

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All snail photos via Wikimedia Commons.