A Million Movies, One Lightbulb

A field note on practice, avoidance, and the unsentimental discipline of being here.

It’s the Summer Solstice of 2025, and I’m kicking off the season with a cannonball into the pool. The solar holiday prompted me to examine my elaborate avoidance strategies, including my fixation on Trumpland’s catastrophic human rights violations and constitutional erosions. Righteous fury feels purposeful, even virtuous. But often it’s just another way to stay busy near the surface, avoiding the deeper work.

The endless scroll of crisis gives me something to monitor and fix. Each fresh violation seduces my attention. Genuine challenges emerge: global instability, AI upheaval, the fragile state of democracy. The analysis becomes endless. But beneath all this carefully calibrated fury, what I’m really avoiding is the unsettling rawness of meeting what’s workable, right here, in this irresolvable moment.

As 2025 wears on, I see openings to work our edges, to stake significance in the strange vacuums of these unfolding worlds. These currents invite a skillful oscillation: tending to what …