@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

Furthering

@Furthering@convo.casa

I love cutting through the small talk and getting down to what matters, including the nuance of lived experience. I'm here to seek out that nuance in a world that wants to oversimplify.

If you're here for good conversation or a cozy chat, let's connect!
Bio pic "The Yellow Gloves" by Esther Paterson Gill (1938) and background image "Still Life with Books and Cards" by Roger de La Fresnaye (1913)

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Furthering, to climate
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

Reintroduced bison in Romania are "stimulating plant growth and securing carbon stored in the soil" as they roam and graze -- which, of course, they did when they were originally a part of the ecosystem.

"Prof Oswald Schmitz of the Yale School of the Environment in Connecticut in the US, who was the lead author of the report, said: 'Bison influence grassland and forest ecosystems by grazing grasslands evenly, recycling nutrients to fertilise the soil and all of its life, dispersing seeds to enrich the ecosystem, and compacting the soil to prevent stored carbon from being released.'

'These creatures evolved for millions of years with grassland and forest ecosystems, and their removal, especially where grasslands have been ploughed up, has led to the release of vast amounts of carbon. Restoring these ecosystems can bring back balance, and ‘rewilded’ bison are some of the climate heroes that can help achieve this.'”

#Climate #Environment #Nature #Forest #Animals #Romania

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/15/bison-romania-tarcu-2m-cars-carbon-dioxide-emissions-aoe

Furthering, to fantasy
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

Really enjoyed The Bone Harp by Victoria Goddard. It diverges a bit from The Lays of the Hearth-Fire series in that it's more abstract and set in a different world. The language is lyrical and free, with a lot of alliteration, pleasant, like a lullaby -- it's definitely a slow burn, if you like that (I do).

I really enjoyed the sprawling sense of imagination and the thoughtful details woven throughout the story.

"There were weavers who learned to capture the sky into impossible fabrics, so the people went garbed in sunsets and moonrises, in the blue of a mountain morning, the starry field of a winter midnight. There were glassblowers who created bells and bellflowers as delicate as Klara’s hoarfrost, gardens of glittering jewels where there had never been aught before but stone."

"Someone caught the winds in jewelled nets, and created symphonies of storms over the mountains. Someone sang the city into hills and towers, plunging pools and hanging gardens, and then spun bridges at dizzying heights between them."

Victoria Goddard has become one of my favorite fantasy authors. The Hands of the Emperor is one of my favorite books (it is about found family, empathy, kindness, being a foreigner/outsider). Her writing is a balm for troubled times and worth returning to time and again for solace.

Furthering, to KindActions
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

One of the things I have been thinking about is how much discourse is stunted by the idea that “I know better than you.” We see it on Mastodon and other social media sites, but we also see it in life, especially if we are a member of an under-represented, marginalized, or minority group.

This one-upmanship crowds out sharing and can make people afraid to voice their opinion or experience due to risk of policing, shaming, condescension, or any of the other ways that people try to demonstrate power over others.

I think it’s worth remembering that we’re all doing life in our own way. We all have something of value to share, and we’re all experts in our own situation.

I'm curious what others' thoughts are about this.

#Kindness #Community #Humanity #Gentleness

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@NatureMC Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree that the medium of communication has a lot to do with communication style!

Definitely an interesting distinction between whether someone joins a group to contribute or for personal gratification. A great question to ask before entering many situations! I want to think more about this.

I'm trying to learn how to deal with different communication styles and not myself get triggered. I can feel for you as a female museum guide, and I'm glad you have support in order to know how to deal with it.

Have you been able to apply your training about how to respond to mansplaining, etc., elsewhere?

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@NatureMC

Petra, a heartfelt thank you for your response. I love the strength and compassion of your reaction to the woman in distress as well as your general approach to bad actors.

The example you shared is tragic, but you're right -- we can stand by someone who needs support AND set a good example for others, who may follow that example in the future. What a beautiful strategy.

So happy to have your energy in my feed and the benefit of your wisdom and curiosity. You are a queen.👑

markwyner, to KindActions
@markwyner@mas.to avatar

While there are many things in life that I care about, the one thing that truly matters is how we treat each other.

If we change nothing more than the self-serving apathy that runs rampant throughout all of our societies, we level up in an indescribable way. The impact would be unfathomable.

Love, kindness, and compassion are literally all we need to change the course of our species and our planet.

Source:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6zo6dHrDEF/

Close up of an emotional-looking Neil deGrasse Tyson with various clips woven in of space, humans scurrying about, and Earth.

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@markwyner What do you think causes the apathy and/or what do you think we could all do differently?

It's a question I've been thinking about lately, too.

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@markwyner I, too, am tired of apathy and hate -- and more so, of the either/or thinking.

I do have empathy for people who are scared, for people who are just trying to survive. I also have empathy for people who have been manipulated and don't know it.

But I really like your approach to communication her. "I don't know if I'm right, but that feels accurate." The use of "we."

These are the ways that I've been trying to counter what passes as communication, which I think is one of the routes to some sort of peace.

I very much agree that with kindness and compassion, bias and prejudice go away. I'm grateful for your message about this.

grimalkina, to random
@grimalkina@mastodon.social avatar

I can't figure out if mastodon is a high context culture or not. People seem to be expected to give long introductions and do a lot of identity/positionality disclosure, but also an enormous reply guy culture which is defined by low context drive-by. Conversational turn-taking is extremely low compared to other platforms ime, but depth-seeking is high. What an interesting mix.

*obviously, these experiences are all situated within my own network effects, and I'm not well networked here.

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@grimalkina You've hit upon something that I've been trying to untangle, too, but maybe on a wider level. One way I've parsed it is between the difference between communicating for information vs. communicating to build relationships. A large demographic seems to lean into communicating for information (either broadcasting it or offering it up to others). A smaller group seems to be here to communicate for relationship building and discussion. (I'm in the latter group.)

In my experience, it can be hard to start a conversation because of this mix. If I ask a question or say "I'm curious about," a person responding thinking I want information can stop the discussion short. However, if someone meets curiosity with curiosity and shares their own experience, then it goes a little better.

I also have noticed that sometimes people have a hard time asking questions (in general, not just on Mastodon), so I wonder if that has something to do with conversational turn-taking being low?

Furthering, to random
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

A friend is graduating, and I've asked one of our mutual friends if she wants to go in for a fountain pen for him. There are some fun/colorful ones at a local coffee shop that would suit his style.

Thought it may be that I am more excited about picking out a fountain pen than he would be receiving it.

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@paradoxmo Hi! The shop in town carries mostly Kaweco. Looks like a couple of Hightide and Lamy pens, too.

I know little about fountain pens -- are you familiar with these brands, and do you prefer one of them over the others?

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@paradoxmo Thanks for your insights!

Yes, it's the Attache from Hightide.

Nice tip about writing with the particular pen. I'll keep that in mind.

Looks like you have such a nice community built up -- I had no idea that they continue to have such a wide and dedicated fanbase.

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@paradoxmo I think one problem I've had with getting into fountain pens is the deplorable situation with stationery. I used to love to write letters and I had a nice little collection of (cheapish) stationery. But with a fountain pen, the ink seems to be more liquid and more comes out of the nib than with a ballpoint -- so poor little cheapish stationery won't hold up (and even that gets increasingly difficult to find). Can you recommend a solution or a source for nice writing paper (I'm in Europe)?

You sent me down memory lane a little. I remember using these purple Pilot fine points https://www.amazon.ca/Pilot-PIL134630-Ballpoint-Refillable-Purple/dp/B007Z7PA74 till they gave my knuckle a callous.

Furthering, to art
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

I finished The Art Thief by Michael Finkel. It documents the crimes of one prolific art-loving thief who robbed out-of-the-way castle museums and other convenient locations within a seven-country radius from his home base in Alsace.

I find art heist stories compelling even as they are disconcerting. Probably because I like reading about the art and art crime units as well as the people whose work it is to care for art. In this genre is also art restitution stories, which are also compelling.

Unfortunately (no spoilers), as interesting as it was reading about the stolen art and even the way it was stolen (the audacity -- and no romanticization of the thief here), the book's ending is a letdown.

However, it's a quick little read that's entertaining and also a study in one person's psychology.

#Art #ArtHistory #Books #Reading #Bookstodon #Crime #NonFiction

Furthering,
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

@NatureMC Oh, how wonderful to get a local perspective. Thank you.

It sounds like the guy's best "tool" was the trust these museums had in their patrons, and he betrayed that trust time and again. 😢 It's awful that it resulted in such a violent loss of art. I hoped to reach the end of the book and all the pieces of art would have been returned. It really hurt to read about his mother's actions.

I'm glad to hear some sympathy for the thief's mental state. I felt that, too, while reading.

Furthering, to Futurology
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

A gentle reminder that just because we don't see a certain type of people doesn't mean they don't exist.

I read and article about homelessness in the US, and lots of commenters "never saw" any homeless people in Spain or France.

Maybe their short stint as a visitor within a limited geographic area and their focus on architecture or weird foreign things shielded them from seeing homelessness.

I also live in a European city where you can go for some time without seeing any homeless people. You also rarely see people who are disabled.

Cultural, historical, legal/security, mobility, and other factors are in play here. It isn't that the social net is so very secure that homelessness -- or indeed, other suffering not alleviated by the state -- does not exist.

#Society #Europe #EU #Homelessness #Socialism #Community

Furthering, to community
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

I find it interesting that some people think loneliness is a personal condition rather than a societal one. I never saw that argument generally made, but maybe people blame themselves for their own sense of loneliness?

"So much of contemporary discussion about the impact of social and technological changes on people’s psychology – from the influence of social media on the wellbeing of the young to the effect of hyper-individualism on our sense of self – fetishises the psychology at the expense of social analysis. We look for loneliness inside our heads when its source lies all around us, in the destruction of collective life, the erosion of communal bonds, the ruin of civil society, the squeezing of public spaces. We could do with obsessing less about personality types than about the obsession with the psychological at the expense of the social."

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2024/mar/24/we-think-loneliness-is-in-our-heads-but-its-source-lies-in-the-ruin-of-civil-society

Furthering, to books
@Furthering@convo.casa avatar

"As my friend, the novelist Isle McElroy, so aptly put it, 'so weird when people read a novel looking for answers. novels are questions. question after question after question.' Reading does not guarantee moral certitude, nor will any individual book be able to undo systemic problems. But being able to sit with nuance and contradiction and complexity can make readers become more discerning consumers of media . . . "

https://lithub.com/against-disruption-on-the-bulletpointization-of-books/

NatureMC, to SciComm
@NatureMC@mastodon.online avatar

deleted_by_author

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    Furthering,
    @Furthering@convo.casa avatar

    @NatureMC Amazing and charming!

    Furthering, to books
    @Furthering@convo.casa avatar

    I just finished Spear, by Nicola Griffith. It's an Arthurian retelling set in Wales about the knight Percival (rendered as the more obscure Peretur Paladr Hir) with a queer and feminist twist.

    I love Griffith's attention to detail, the main character's interaction with her environment, and how the story veers from the expected "hero's journey."

    It's a short work, showing the mastery exhibited in her other work set in early medieval times, Hild (which I loved). You can sense the research that undergirds her presentation of the characters and their surroundings and see with what care she makes her literary choices.

    Daojoan, to random
    @Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

    One year ago, I made the decision to rebuild my life and my work around my ideals and my values. I decided to be ruthless about embracing those values.

    It's been tough, I'm not going to sugar-coat it.

    But in the past 12 months, my career as an indie writer / freelancer has survived:

    • deleting my 30k follower Twitter account
    • deleting my substack
    • publicly leaving crypto
    • shutting down my agency

    Nothing has stopped me yet.

    Furthering,
    @Furthering@convo.casa avatar

    @Daojoan I have only been recently introduced to your writing, courtesy of Mastodon, and I've begun to look forward to your posts. It's always refreshing to hear someone whole-heartedly embracing their values. It feels like an antidote to so much we're encouraged to believe.

    markwyner, to mastodon
    @markwyner@mas.to avatar

    Some words about Mastodon moderation:

    1. It’s hard. No decision is easy and there’s lots of gray area even with explicit rules.
    2. We’ll sometimes debate for a long time on a single post. We do our best to make the right call.
    3. Even so, we sometimes make mistakes. We’re willing to accept appeals when that happens.
    4. We get a lot of things right. You can’t even imagine some of the traumatic things we see.

    1/5

    Furthering,
    @Furthering@convo.casa avatar

    @markwyner Thanks for a look at the behind-the-scenes of content moderation and how many factors must be taken into account and how much effort is put into making the right call.

    ArtBear, (edited ) to politics

    I wonder if we're doing wrong? In almost all countries.

    Can be difficult not to under estimate the help one has received in life, & to over estimate self reliance & personal input

    Isn't that the root of much selfish behaviour, thinking, voting, politics:
    believing "I made it on my own"?

    Maybe we should positively & nostalgically but clear eyed remind people of all & they got as children, /job market security, etc their parents had access to

    Furthering,
    @Furthering@convo.casa avatar

    @ArtBear This feels like one of the quintessential American tropes -- independence and self-reliance. If you need other people, it might be seen as a character flaw by some, and therefore less attractive in a leader.

    I'm not sure what it's about in other countries (American cultural colonialism? the patriarchy at work?).

    But definitely, we are overlooking the importance of community and shared resources in so many areas. None of us are so remarkable as to do it all in a vacuum.

    NatureMC, (edited ) to DOOM
    @NatureMC@mastodon.online avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    Furthering,
    @Furthering@convo.casa avatar

    @NatureMC I really loved this review. Thank you!

    BobWilliams, to random

    AI as a cure for loneliness seems to be a push of late. I could see it being entertaining for some, but also think it would make you feel more lonely, as you're engaging with a parlor trick that'll tell you what you want to hear.

    Of course if people don't know that's who they're talking to they might not feel that way, but that's a problem.

    Furthering,
    @Furthering@convo.casa avatar

    @BobWilliams I haven't seen anything in this vein yet. Any good articles you could point to?

    Without knowing the full context, this seems more like a symptom of the problem than a solution.

    Furthering,
    @Furthering@convo.casa avatar

    @BobWilliams @ArtBear
    I . . . wow. I can't decide whether to be curious, amused, horrified, or something else.

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