tomato is a fruit

 

We've been away. It was a good break, great weather, good scenery, mostly no internet, long walks up and down hills and meeting people, old friends, long talks into the night about trying to make sense of the world around us, our place in it and how to handle this whole shit show.

 

There were castles and forests and streams and valleys and vineyards and old towns and tourists. 

There was listening and laughing and also feeling sorry for ourselves and overwhelmed by the tasks at hand but not alone. There were reports on actions and learning and showing up for others, too detailed to share but so very hopeful. That now is the time to escape commodity and replace it with community (paraphrasing Richard Powers) so that our capacity for empathy remains intact. 

 

And so today, after the laundry has been done etc. I am so very tired. It's been a lot. But R made apple crumble and there are still some pears and grapes to harvest.

Somewhere someone mentioned something like this as an approach to the endless feed of news and dystopia and schadenfreude and blaming and told-you-so and well, all of social media especially before sleep:

• Check if what you are reading is facilitating more understanding or more confusion.
• Check if it's adding to your awareness or hindering it.
• Check if it's contributing to your knowledge or making you feel more hostile and out of control. 

Because the biggest problem is actually a very trivial one: we refuse to believe what we do not want to believe, even when we are confronted with clear warnings.

We have suppressed the fact that each and every one of us bears responsibility. We have lived in a kind of paradise for 20 to 30 years, at least 80 per cent of the population. And we thought it would always be that way. We thought we could buy security with money. Today we are learning that we will have neither endless time nor enough money. 

 Jeanette Winterson (not sure, thanks for pointing this out, Steve)

You know what to do. Because as a wise woman said ages ago, knowledge is recognizing that a tomato is a fruit, whereas wisdom is knowing not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad.