Oliver Thorn, aka PhilosophyTube, released a great video about “Climate Grief,” and I had a few thoughts on it. (You can watch it below.)

As 1) a millennial, 2) a semi-committed environmentalist, and 3) a UU, I couldn’t help but nod in agreement with his description of the climate crisis as a “hyperobject,” something inescapable and composed of a multitude of interrelated issues.

For a self-described writer, I’ve written very little outside of blog posts this year. I have … reasons (I’ll just say life has demanded my attention in ways I couldn’t ignore).

I started a perfectly-good novel last year, tentatively named Field of Shards. I intended to work on it back in January/February, which is when, well, the ugliness happened.

My fallow periods always coincide with some personal crisis, whether I know it at the time or not. November has been a lucky month, at least, which is why NaNoWriMo works part of the time. I think the best way to describe these fallow times is “emotionally distracted.”

This quote by Brene Brown used to be one of my favorites, from her book Braving the Wilderness: “strong back, soft front, wild heart.” In essence, it means having strong moral conviction and identity, learning to be vulnerable, and letting your heart lead you. I’d recite it in the context of leadership, either in an interpersonal sense or with regards to church or work.

I no longer believe this to be true.

I’ve decided my personal life should be, well, more private.

Nothing’s changed. I continue to address my past behavior and come to terms with my identity.

It’s also part of a wider effort on my part to practice better social media hygiene, so you’ll see some other changes on this and my other profiles.

This blog will remain topical, but being confessional doesn’t help myself or anyone else.

Oh, right, I’m a programmer.

I talk about mental health, writing, movies, mental health, travel, and mental health so often on here, it’s easy to forget that I spend 8 hours a day programming.

I write code for a living. More specifically, I’m a web developer specializing in front-end code but with significant back-end experience. I’ve spent most of my professional career working in Javascript, ColdFusion, and PHP, and I cut my teeth on QBasic way, way back when.

And lately I’ve spent a great deal of time playing around with Python.

What Godzilla: King of the Monsters understands – as does the first Pacific Rim movie – is that giant monster movies are supposed to be cathartic.

Holy moly, this show.

As Game of Thrones wound its way to a wet fart of a series finale, I started thinking about what else I could use my HBO Now subscription for. (I frequently confuse the on-demand service with HBO Go, which is just for cable subscribers – which is probably intentional.) Besides an archive of good miniseries from years past, there was a new show that had really piqued my interest: a show about the Chernobyl disaster.

My alarm woke me at 3:30 AM on a Saturday morning, which hadn’t been a regular occurrence for over ten years – not since I worked logistics at a big retail chain. I chugged some coffee/energy drink mix from a can, pulled on my hiking clothes, fed the cat, grabbed my gear, and drove to meet my friends.

My friend Trude had invited me to join her and Diane on a bird safari around Lake Apopka. Trude won it at a church auction; I had to back out when the bids rose above $200. Diane would drive and point out interesting specimens; Trude would take pictures; I, with a tremor that makes it difficult to handle a camera, would observe through binoculars.

Nature is way more interesting with knowledgeable friends and a deliberate pace.

I recently appeared on the podcast The First Run, co-hosted by my friend Chris Scalzo, to discuss Avengers: Endgame. Check it out here!

Well, that movie’s gonna stick around in my headspace a while.

I don’t think it’s quite as good as Get Out, Jordan Peele’s last film, but few films are. However, I found Us to be more memorable – the imagery is vivid and disturbing, especially during the third act. The performances, including two amazing ones from Lupita Nyong’o, are excellent for reasons I don’t wish to spoil.

Speaking of Jordan Peele, I really should watch the new Twilight Zone series.