today’s mood music: The Cardigans - Erase / Rewind “Director’s Cut”

Today’s mood music - Massive Attack - Teardrop.

Today’s mood music: Talking Heads - Psycho Killer

“Now is the time to plant seeds for a defense of our speech and communication later.” from @davew@mastodon.social

“Social media platforms as they’re designed today don’t reward depth.” a good observation from @moonmehta@mastodon.social

Today’s mood music: Beastie Boys - An Open Letter To NYC

Banksia. #flowers

“Curiosity is a feedback loop. The more you learn, the more you can inform and target your actions.” …. Rands

Today’s mood music: Always look on the bright side of life, Monty Python.

It’s that kind of day.

“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion”. ….. Bell Hooks.

Today’s mood music: White Rabbit, Jefferson Airplane.

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

~ Buddha

It’s going to be a visceral week in America. Get out to vote, be civil and stay strong.

“One of the most remarkable features of the bureaucratic system of authority is the shrinking probability that the moral oddity of one’s actions will ever be discovered, and once discovered made into a painful moral dilemma.”

Zygmunt Bauman, 1989.

“We live in a time of such confusion and rancour, with a culture that puts a premium on things that don’t last: money, fame, status, likes. We chase the approval of strangers on our phones. We build all manner of walls and fences around ourselves, and then we wonder why we feel so alone. We don’t trust each other as much because we don’t take the time to know each other. And in that space between us, politicians and algorithms teach us to caricature each other and troll each other and fear each other.”

Barack Obama, former President of the United States

Green and white corolla. #flowers #photography

Getting in the spirit.

“The internet is run by adtech right now, and all the biggest companies are thriving on that, and I think the sooner we get out of that, the better. It is certainly going to be hard, and I’m not against ads per-se, but I’m against ads everywhere, ads by default, ads making our lives crappier and more miserable.” Interview with Kagi

I’ve gone all in with Kagi as a paying customer. I detest surveillance capitalism and ad-tech so paying a premium for the best possible search experience makes sense for me. And their privacy and data collection policies make Kagi even more compelling, it’s the icing on the cake.

Lets see how it goes, wish me luck.

You never know what someone else is going through, but chances are they’re struggling with something, perhaps even everything.

Whether it’s chronic pain, a failing marriage, troubled children, infirm parents, money problems, fear for safety/stability, or whatever, it informs how they think and behave.

It’s all too easy to get angry or frustrated with “the other,” but there’s always something behind it. If everyone came from a default position of compassion, we’d all get along a lot better.