Wayfinding

The big dipper and Orion's belt are the only two constellations I can reliably locate without help. I'm also pretty directionally-challenged. In pre-smartphone times in unfamiliar cities I have more than once headed off in the exact opposite direction of my destination. I'll admit I've even done that while looking at a map on my phone.

Fortunately, the wayfinding I'm talking about here is not so geographic. It is emotional, mental, moral. Lots of people have been shaken lately: they've been forced to witness the mechanisms of this country's cruel legacy, now enacted against those it previously sheltered or pretended to care about. Some within that group want to pile up sandbags against taking in what this spectacle really means. But I'm also sensing a lot of mental maps being recalibrated as people try to integrate unwelcome realizations about their nation. So, even while some block, deny, or flounder in confusion, many others are having a window for an important shift in perspective that I hope we can leverage into something active and long-lasting.

This week finds me trying to regroup. I've been playing a game of whack-a-mole on social media against a fresh uptick in AI slop that people are sharing because they are so desperate for feel-good stories. I'm trying collect some resources to post all in one place instead of piecemeal, to help address what this is doing to social trust and storytelling.

So, I'll admit, I haven't adequately digested the latest things I've been looking at, listening to, and reading about as part of my Learn, Imagine, Act list. I don't have new suggestions. It's extremely cold and there are huge icebergs of snow everywhere. Today's plan, in addition to writing this, is to share some posts on social media, make some calls to electeds, pick up some books at the library, and buy nothing, in solidarity with the strike.

Because last week's post was my 40th since I started this site last March, I'm also going to start working on a kind of directory for my posts so far. Back in July, when I was approaching 20, I declared it the end of a semester. I described what used to be the purpose of final exams when I was a professor: to encourage a retrospective view of what students had been engaging with throughout the term, so they could consider how it all looked from a certain kind of culminating point.

Tracks of Time, Learning Curves, and Trains of Thought

This is my seventeenth post here, and I’m officially declaring it the end of the first semester of this 4-year Learn, Imagine, Act project. During my years as a college professor, I felt a lot of institutional pressure to require final exams. But finals never struck me as a particularly

Finding ThroughlinesRuth Ann Smalley

I feel like it's time for me to do that kind of look-back. So much has happened in such a short time. I feel like retracing my steps might yield new and helpful insights. And if I could pull my work into an index ordered by topic, it might help future readers find their way to posts that interest them. I'd also love to attract more readers, and need time to think about how to do that. So, that's what I'm going to be working on, hopefully for next week.

In the meantime, I am re-posting last week's letter. I sense that some people didn't open it because of the horrific photo. Or, more generally, because life can seem like way too much right now. Or, more importantly, because another atrocity was committed in Minneapolis the VERY. NEXT. DAY.

Taking Action

“Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it” attributed to Gandhi This was not the essay I’d planned to write today. But it demanded that I sit down and work it out. It’s runs long, because I needed to bring in the powerful

Finding ThroughlinesRuth Ann Smalley

But that letter is full of information and resources for wayfinding.

Resources with the potential to offer you the "power surges" that move through you when you see how you, personally, can do more to help. I've heard from people who told me it "was just what they needed" last weekend. Maybe you know people to share it with that need it. Hopefully it can be what you need now . . .

Now. Now that we've seen them blitzing the small, artsy coastal town of Portland, Maine, and heard rumors that they're heading for Springfield, Ohio, next. Now that we've seen even more stories about shattered families—more children, pets, and vehicles with smashed windows left behind. Now that one hit man has been replaced with another henchman in Minneapolis, and some of the agents go deeper undercover trying to infiltrate and lure the unsuspecting. Now is a good time to look for all the ways to keep helping.

We can't stop this without helping. Even with helping it is going to take immense determination, organizing, and ongoing effort. I believe we have it in us; it remains to be seen whether we can call it forth in time.

I've got to go make my calls now. I hope you and yours are bearing up, safe, and healthy. Please let me know how you are doing.