Category: self-care

Writing in the Dark: navigating creativity in the anxiety/depression/insomnia/trauma cycle

~ CZed

Originally a Twitter thread in 2019. Some additions and clean-up, and updating.

I keep lists of my DNF (did not finish) reads. I noted a pattern forming in the last three months and it’s got me thinking, but as usual, please consider it a workshop piece, a first draft.

We’re creatives. We tend to be well tuned to the feelings of others. For the past decade, there’s been a whole WHACK of a lot of despair, pain, frustration, war, trauma & general hardship. That gets into our heads & our work.

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Winter Preparedness

~ CZed

Author’s note: This was originally written… a few years ago (?), to help a friend move to snow country. And then got some additions to maybe turn it into a series, and then I apparently got distracted. I’m posting it as is for now; I may come back to it and finish the series.

Power failures happen. Trees get overloaded with ice and fall through power lines. A car accident into a transformer or substation can blow the local area. High wind drops lines and tree branches. A pair of birds squabbling on high tension lines an create an arc from one line to another. The grid can be delicate, but it’s also extremely robust, because it works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with more than 99.999% uptime. Most power failures are local inconveniences that last no more than a few hours.

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Demographics of Opiates

~ CZed

Originally a Twitter thread. (Minor edits for clarity) (and some additions)

Koldony seems to miss a major factor in opiates use: demographics. His fav stat is opiate use increased drastically starting in 1997.
Which was the year the oldest Baby Boomers started turning 50, and before occupational repetitive stress injuries were widely acknowledged, and while pre-existing conditions still excluded many people from any health coverage. It’s the largest demographic cohort in history; they’re comfortable with drugs, & occupational abuse of workers was the societal norm for the 20th century.

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