June 11, 2023

Hit and Miss #301: Full of food, family, and love

Hello!

Writing, very (very) full with food, after a full day visiting family. We’ve had a busy few weeks, with lots of emotional ups and downs, but are glad to be able to spend time with loved ones.

• Looking outside or breathing this week felt a little different, a little more difficult—wildfire smoke flipped the pandemic logic of “outside air is safest” on its head, pushing us to seal windows and limit external circulation. CBC published a frightening chart of hectares burned over time by year—this year’s is a vertical line, with more hectares burned already in 2023 than we’ve burned in the entirety of any of the last seven fire seasons (which usually end in November). It does not bode well.
• One way we get through difficult times, like fires, is through community—an inherently social act. Apple this week shared its, er, vision of the future of computing, a tech that would undoubtedly facilitate content consumption, but in a pretty isolated way. I appreciated commentators who critiqued it on the latter count. To be clear, I also get the appeal!! But, I’ve been trying to go out and do more things with people—people I don’t know, even!—and appreciating more and more the brain rewiring that such time together can offer. So, uh, deep skepticism that this is what we really need, as our challenges become ever more about our ability to relate and get along.
• Finally, a moving message from Sameer in memory of a close friend of his who recently passed away. “Tell your friends you love them”—some of the best advice out there.

All the best for the week ahead. May it be filled with great love.

Lucas