Seek The Substantial

There are times that I hesitate to write about things, but then there may be things that although these things are incredibly personal, it may benefit someone to know that certain things happen. This isn’t so much about my kids as it is about certain kids in their schools who use racist terms to refer to them or use racists phrases in front of them. the N-word, monkey, slave, African (not in a good way) are the ones from this year. Oh, and a “joke” when the lights go out in the locker room that no one can see Youssouf unless he smiles. You wouldn’t think that junior high kids would say things like this, but they learn it from someone, maybe their parents, older siblings, who knows. The point isn’t to say why these things happen, but rather that that do. And it would be so easy to be in denial that these things happen, but they are. And my kids are good kids, not perfect, but good kids. They don’t get in trouble, Fitsum is in band, cross country, and tennis, as well as National Honor Society. Youssouf is in honors classes and is maybe the best athlete that the junior high has ever seen. If it’s happening to them with parents who have friends who are teachers and we know enough people to tell us what’s happening that we are able to do something about it. And this isn’t to say that the administration hasn’t been responsive, because they are and have been. There’s only so much you can do after the fact, but they make every effort make sure it is addressed. If your response is that these are merely a few bad apples and yes, that is true, but I would also tell you that it is more prevalent than you think and despite how far society has moved forward, it still has a long ways to go.

Brendan Leonard is a blogger, a professional one, and he put out a video about making a shed. Strike that. It’s not about that. It’s about starting a family. His dog dying. Working hard. Completing a project. Love having many languages, for those of us who know how to say I love you by just working hard and never looking up because sometimes find the right words is hard. Make sure and let those people know that you are saying I love you by putting your head down and doing the one thing that you know how to do, which is just work. It’s okay to say that.

We get a little less serious. Two guys climb a wall, but not vertically, which hard, but horizontally.

A unified theory of f#ck$.

This is one of my answers to the question of, why give a fuck about work? Why love your work? It won’t, of course, love you back. It can’t. Work isn’t a thing that can love. It isn’t alive, it isn’t and won’t ever be living. And my answer is: don’t. Don’t give a fuck about your work. Give all your fucks to the living. Give a fuck about the people you work with, and the people who receive your work—the people who use the tools and products and systems or, more often than not, are used by them. Give a fuck about the land and the sea, all the living things that are used or used up by the work, that are abandoned or displaced by it, or—if we’re lucky, if we’re persistent and brave and willing—are cared for through the work. Give a fuck about yourself, about your own wild and tender spirit, about your peace and especially about your art. Give every last fuck you have to living things with beating hearts and breathing lungs and open eyes, with chloroplasts and mycelia and water-seeking roots, with wings and hands and leaves. Give like every fuck might be your last.