language and semantics

an inevitable future of unconditional love. "The world is sacred. It can't be improved." says verse 29 of the Tao te Ching.

I know the experience this statement comes from. I believe everyone knows it. Knows moments of simple unimpeachable perfection, no matter how violent (eg watching a crocodile catching a deer in slo mo). In this moment—wedding, sex, nature, child's birth, "first sip" of coffee, simple flower—this sacredness is everything.

What if we all remembered this? What if we made our decisions from this place? What if we let go of needing to "get somewhere" altogether? Like a post-scarcity economy, but for our relationship to existence. Unconditional love and faith. What would a society look like that recognizes it is in full devotion to what already is, and needs do nothing?

I can feel my own resistance—what if I need to take out the trash!? Or redesign social media's incentive structure?! But then I challenge the assumptions these question depend on: how come perfection someone doesn't include taking out the trash? Doesn't it already, if this quote is true? Doesn't the unconditional love I'm pointing to already include all of it?

One view: the future of unconditional love is inevitable, because it's what we already have, and have always had.

#FutureYouLove 

COVID Vaccines: is the cure is worse than the disease (these days)? I don’t get COVID vaccines anymore. I did the first round while we were still in lockdown.

I stand by the choice to get vaccinated then. We didn’t know what was happening, lots of people were dying, good statistics were hard to come by (good interpretations even harder), and the virus hadn’t mutated yet.

It wasn’t great for me: two shots separated by a month; 5.5 days after the first I got shingles (apparently thousands of other people also got at that exact time) and then after the 2nd I was sicker than I’ve almost ever been. It lasted about 2.5 days and then was VOOM instantly cleared up. It was weird and felt unnatural. But perhaps when I later got COVID, it would have been WAY worse, without having gotten the vaccine.

Now, I don’t believe it’s worth it. The experience of having COVID is way less. It’s less deadly. There’s not a chance of herd immunity. And I’ve got friends who have awful long COVID from the vaccine. I haven’t done all the research, and anyone who’s tried to tell me about the research has seemed stilted to one side or another that had me take their interpretations with a huge grain of salt.