Tag: care
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The Battle You Cannot See: On Demon Hunters and Partial Recognition
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” I have carried this line with me for years. It’s commonly attributed to Ian Maclaren, pen name for Rev. John Watson, a minister and author from the late 1800s. The statement is less a sentiment, more an orientation. It is a refusal to take…
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Adaptation Fatigue Is Not Failure
On Gen X, Technology, and the Myth of Reluctance Maybe you’ve seen it. Something’s going around where Gen X is described as being unwilling to adapt to new technology. This isn’t even said dramatically. Not even with much hostility. Just… stated like it’s a matter of fact. Casually. Like it’s obvious. Anyway…. GenXGina66 puts it…
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We Stayed Because It Meant Something: On Captain Grim and the Extraction of Devotion
I came to World of Warcraft through an outbreak. Not a real-life one, like COVID-19. Not even a narrative one in-game. It wasn’t a scripted occurrence. It was, instead, a failure. The Corrupted Blood incident circulated beyond the game. Epidemiologists studied it. Scholars wrote about it. A digital system had produced something complex enough to…
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Feel the Hatred of Ten Thousand Years
In Heroes of the Storm, Illidan Stormrage says, “Feel the hatred of ten thousand years!” Let’s pause here for a moment and note that Heroes of the Storm is a crossover brawler game created by Blizzard Entertainment. Illidan, a central character in the Warcraft franchise, fights other Blizzard game characters: Tracer (from the Overwatch series),…
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No Outside on the Expressway
Near the end of No Other Choice, Man-su sits in his car on the expressway. The traffic has stopped. Around him are enormous trucks carrying lumber destined for the paper mill. The trucks tower over his small car. He cannot move. The vehicles box him in on every side. At first, the image reads as…
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Collegiality Is Not Compliance
There is a move in institutional life that hides in plain sight. It calls itself collegiality. A reasonable issue is raised. A link is broken. A guide is outdated. The work is not the problem. It is ordinary. What shifts is the structure. A directive is issued without consultation. Authority is assumed rather than named.…
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The Garden Closes Quietly
Near the end of No Other Choice, Mi-Ri says something that initially seems small. She mentions that she doesn’t want to resume her tennis lessons. It’s an understated line. No confrontation. No dramatic revelation. Just a quiet decision about something that once filled her time. The moment lands with unexpected weight. Tennis, earlier in the…
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The Kind of Tired a Vacation Can’t Fix
One of the films I return to from time to time is The Adjustment Bureau. On the surface, it’s a scifi story about fate and free will. Unseen agents quietly adjusting the course of people’s lives so that the “plan” unfolds as intended. Doors open and close at the right moments. Meetings happen or fail…
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Turning the Inner Eye to See Its Path
The Bene Gesserit litany has been with me since undergrad. It has stayed with me through library school, my first job as an academic librarian, and many professional spaces and situations. Through the years, it functioned as a psychic shield. As an undergrad at SFSU, I carried the words with me on a notebook binder.…
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Standing in the Circle: Recognizing Care Before I Had Words
Prince Baelor Breakspear steps forward during the Trial of Seven, and the world tightens. The law is present. The rules are clear. The spectacle is sanctioned. Nothing requires him to move. And yet he does. Before I could tell you why this mattered, my body already knew. A stillness. A pull. A welling in my…