OUR AUGUST BREAK . . .
brought us a pause from sending out our weekly newsletter, but in the interim the world did not stop turning. Alongside joy, rest, and bounty reside a landslide of natural and man-made disasters - the kind that can easily bring ache and overwhelm.
It is important to acknowledge recurring themes - for example, climate disasters like the fires that ravaged Maui (1) or the warming waters (2) that helped contribute to the destruction of Hurricane Idalia - and violence that continues to take lives and traumatize people on college campuses (3), doing routine shopping (4), and where people stand up for justice for themselves and others (5) (6).
This is just a small round-up of the alarming happenings that dominated the news cycle for a few days - only to be replaced with the next emergency. A seemingly never-ending cycle of panic and neglect.
And yet with all of the grief that comes with informing ourselves and acknowledging these harsh realities - there also comes responsibility. We must always distinguish between care and despair. And we must always take steps to turn the brutal reality of life on earth into beauty, together.
As Jenny Odell writes in her book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, "It also means giving yourself the break that media cycles and narratives will not, allowing yourself to believe in another world while living in this one ... To stand apart is to look at the world (now) from the point of view as it could be (the future), with all of the hope and sorrowful contemplation that this entails ... This is not idle exercise. As the attention economy works to keep us trapped in a frightful present, it only becomes more important not just to recognize past versions of our predicament but to retain the capacity for an imagination somehow untainted by disappointment."
This does not mean ignoring the ills of the world, but it does mean using our time and energy to make strides in improving this world that we've got.
Here at GFJ that manifests in two ways:
- reminding us of our shared humanity. There are over 80,000 of us on this newsletter - who all believe in and are working toward a better world with more community, connection, and care.
As a small experiment, simply hit reply and tell us your first name and what you ate for breakfast this morning.
- continually taking our work one step further. One reader recently asked us to expand our 'How to Write an Equitable Job Post' to the interview process as well. Words (in job posts) must always translate to actions as well (in interviews and in the workplace) - and while there has been great progress in the past few years there is still so much more to learn and implement to create truly equitable work environments.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we dive deeper into how we can question and improve the interview process to make a warmer and richer environmental for all.
Thank you Sal - steward of Roosterhaven, a small regenerative farm in the Midwest US - for caring enough to reach out and ask for something worthwhile.
We're in this together,
Tay + Dor
photo by Christine Han
FOOTNOTES
We included the links to these news stories because we want you to have access to information - but we also urge you to take pause between each one. The point is to share information that can help you proceed with care and build a better vision for this world, rather than cause despair.
(1) more information on the Maui Fires
(2) the effect of warming waters
(3) UNC newspaper front page captures the feelings of having an open fire on campus
(4) Brittany Packnett Cunningham honors AJ Laguerre, Angela Carr, and Jerrald Gallion whose lives were taken in Jacksonville, Florida.
(5) O'Shea Sibley has a lasting legacy
(6) Laura Ann Carleton believed in supporting the LGBTQ+ community.
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