Enjoy dessert.

February 11, 2017 6:58 AM

What Can I Do? A Guide to Doing, Not Despairing A charming and helpful comic [via mefi projects].
posted by ignignokt (13 comments total)

thanks heurtebise, and thanks Metafilter. I made a picture of Sublimity's excellent comment on the same topic.
posted by rebent at 7:24 AM on February 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

Thanks for this post. It's a great reminder of what really matters. I love the last two illustrations with the plants and mountains in the background. Nature is such a healing force, especially in difficult times. Awesome.
posted by strelitzia at 7:59 AM on February 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

How does one "read up on hope?"
posted by cmoj at 9:22 AM on February 11, 2017

How does one "read up on hope?"

Any of Studs Terkel's books of interviews are a good place to start.
posted by murphy slaw at 9:45 AM on February 11, 2017 [6 favorites]

cmoj: I'm reading a book about successfull activism by regular people called "Soul of a Citizen". That's pretty helpful and hopeful.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:46 AM on February 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

I been seeing a lot of this stuff on Twitter and just like usual I'm looking through these like "Hmm I can't do any of these things. OK then."
posted by bleep at 9:50 AM on February 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

I been seeing a lot of this stuff on Twitter and just like usual I'm looking through these like "Hmm I can't do any of these things. OK then."


i must admit the advice to "sleep well" reminds me of the scene in Rick and Morty where Jerry goes

TRY TO RELAX? YOU TRY TO RELAX! HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO RELAX? IT IS A PARADOX!

posted by murphy slaw at 10:26 AM on February 11, 2017 [9 favorites]

This was cute and made me smile, which is a rare feat these days, so thanks, heurtebise for making, and ignignokt for posting!

—

strelitzia: Nature is such a healing force, especially in difficult times.

Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes! I'm reminded of Kakuzo Okakura, in The Book of Tea:

In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. We eat, drink, sing, dance, and flirt with them. We wed and christen with flowers. We dare not die without them. We have worshipped with the lily, we have meditated with the lotus, we have charged in battle array with the rose and the chrysanthemum. We have even attempted to speak in the language of flowers. How could we live without them? ...

Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of the stars, standing in the garden, nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of the dews and the sunbeams, are you aware of the fearful doom that awaits you? Dream on, sway and frolic while you may in the gentle breezes of summer.

This has been a very long winter indeed, and I dearly await the coming of Spring.
posted by ragtag at 10:50 AM on February 11, 2017 [10 favorites]

How does one "read up on hope?"

Off the top of my head, here's a half dozen or so ways, representing a wide range of interpretations of "read up on hope." This list--which doesn't even come close to pretending to be anywhere near beginning to be complete--includes children's books, community organizing histories and how-to's, and some more academic writing.

Rad American Women
Rad Women Worldwide
Why David Sometimes Wins
Rules for Radicals
Moved to Action
Organizing for Social Change
Doing Democracy
Groundbreakers
posted by dersins at 12:42 PM on February 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

Or you could "read up on hope" by reading some contemporary poetry. Writing a poem--regardless of its ostensible subject matter--is both an inherently political act, and an inherently hopeful one.
posted by dersins at 12:44 PM on February 11, 2017 [2 favorites]

Nature is such a healing force, especially in difficult times.

This has been a very long winter indeed, and I dearly await the coming of Spring.

I have been wondering how much of certain people I know, myself included, coping so badly with this has been because we're kind of inclined to have a rough time in winter to start with, and that we might have done much better if the news had come at the start of summer. I know I'll start looking at things to do to relax and it's like--take a walk! Great, yes, I'll totally do that, sorry, wait, no, have you seen the weather out there? (It's actually relatively nice today, but this is the first nice weekend day I can remember in quite awhile, and of course I have a head cold.)

Sometimes outside is relaxing, and sometimes it's freezing rain. I think it's been kind of a source of extra stress to have all this "go out and get shit done" kind of stuff happpening at a time of year when my usual coping mechanism is pretty close to hibernation.
posted by Sequence at 12:47 PM on February 11, 2017 [3 favorites]

A couple of grace notes to think about, of which ragtag's post has reminded me.

1. On flowers - several years back, when I was at one of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's annual sakura festivals, I attended a "Japanese Tea Ceremony" demonstration. The whole presentation was narrated by an elderly Japanese man while his wife served tea to two audience volunteers, and he described it all. But one thing he said struck me and has stayed with me for nearly 10 years now: he said that sometimes people asked him how they should dress for a tea ceremony, and he always advised them to imagine that they were a flower "because flowers don't try to make themselves more beautiful than they already are."

2. On the coming of spring - Tom Waits on that topic.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:53 PM on February 11, 2017 [7 favorites]

Missing the BURN THE MOTHERFUCKER DOWN panel.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:50 AM on February 12, 2017 [1 favorite]