23 Comments
Mar 13, 2022Liked by Antonia Malchik

"I’m here to document the war on your country. You can follow me on Instagram."

The world in your phone.

"I have deadlines piling up faster than I can meet them and am having a lot of trouble focusing—part post-Covid brain fog,"

The brain fog lifts eventually. It's brain swelling though. Swelling has to go down for that to have the fog disappear. Took awhile for me, hopefully it will be short for you since you have the benefit of the vaccine (which did not exist in early 2020).

"part an inability to drag my attention away from Ukraine and Russia."

Potential nuclear war, like death, has a way for seizing one's attention.

"What if the battles perpetuated in our time are evidence that none of the wars have never ended, and their causes run deeper than any amount of analysis is willing to examine, threading back through time as humanity batters itself in conflicts none of us fully understand?"

Near as I can tell, humans will kill other humans if they can (or if they have been told to kill), they have some desire to do so (given how much pretend violence - but not real violence in the US - there is on TV, and how much people talk about killing people, finding someone to kill someone else is pretty easy), and they can get away with it. A lot of war propaganda is about rejiggering people's existing morality to allow, or more importantly really, insisting on the need for killing a certain group or class of people. ANY group against ANY other group.

elm

that's what the books say

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Mar 8, 2022Liked by Antonia Malchik

Your assessment of Don't Look Up seems spot on to me - thank you for naming it. It is that peculiar overwhelm and distraction of those "how can we...?" questions that come at us from all directions that is part of what is so exhausting - and keeps us in this empathy distraction loop that honestly feels less helpful with each new crisis.

Also, I immediately copied down the Nick Estes question and put it on the wall above my desk. Thank you - as always - for so much to think on all in one spot.

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founding

I think it is a forever war. No medals, no heroes, just blunt force sorrow with occasional moments of respite. I don't know what to do about it but I suppose I'm going to get up in the morning and dust myself off and waddle back into the breach. I'll think of something along the way.

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"you can find me on instagram" like they're someone you bumped into on top of a mountain good lord that's bleak

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Mar 7, 2022·edited Mar 7, 2022Liked by Antonia Malchik

"What if all the wars are forever wars? What if the battles perpetuated in our time are evidence that none of the wars have never ended, and their causes run deeper than any amount of analysis is willing to examine, threading back through time as humanity batters itself in conflicts none of us fully understand"

As you so often do, you offer up a simple yet powerful insight/perspective. I fully agree with your assessment here. The fight never ends. The parties.... they don't really matter. It's members of the same species turning against each other.

https://genius.com/Sole-and-dj-pain-1-capitalism-is-tearing-us-apart-lyrics

"Through the window of a cruise ship

Keep it moving

Over the homeless people sleeping and the refugees fleeing

They might buy you off with a mansion on a prairie

Just don’t ask where the bodies are buried"

Oh look at that.. https://foreverwars.substack.com/

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Imagining a pre-colonial Montana is one reason I want to visit Mongolia. It is a fenceless steppe, bordered by mountains, sparsely populated by a nomadic people. Its own history is not un-complicated, but the landscape wasn't affected by the Homestead Act and railroad land grants.

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founding

You haven't read "The City & The City"? I could have sworn we've talked about it before. Hmm. But - there's definitely a reason I started my own newsletter with a piece about that book. Absolutely dazzling and the ideas in it around perceptual brainwashing are incredible (and incredibly unsettling). Please read it so we can have an epic 20,000 word email exchange about it when you're fully recovered.

And re. that, I'm so glad you're now on the mend, albeit slowly. I've felt so muddle-headed these past 10 days because of events in Ukraine derailing every non-war thought I can come up with - so I can't imagine what an added mental burden of post-Covid brain fog is like too. That's rough. :/

Also, please do not put unrealistic pressure on that amazing mind of yours because YOU JUST HAD COVID okay, sorry, All Caps is dreadfully stroppy-sounding but, if you're doing that thing that people with a high-quality work ethic do where they only have 60% energy available and saying to themselves "why aren't I doing a normal day's work here, come on, stop being lazy" instead of a more sensible "aha, I've got 6 out of these 10 things done and now I'm exhausted, because of *course* I am"....well....I guess I should end this sentence. There. Ended. But I hope you're self-calibrating with an eye on how you are, not how you want to be. Anyway. I'll stop being so bossy now, yes.

(Re. brainfog, weirdly enough, I just started listening to the Audible version of this: https://www.waterstones.com/book/beating-brain-fog/dr-sabina-brennan/9781409197720 Will report back if there's anything super-useful-seeming.)

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Thank you for the link to Yevgenia' war diary. It is so powerful yet infused with a kind of dark humor and radiance that is almost painful. I imagine the war photographer to be Lynsey Addario. I once went to "see" her speak in downtown Los Angeles at the public library. She was so tiny and "normal" -- hard to believe what she does. I do follow her on Instagram, and it is such a weird world we live in. What does that even mean? "Follow" "on" "Instagram"?

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