mountdoomscrolling Jus 15 years ago my aunt told me that a big catastrophe would happen in my lifetime. She wasn't psychic, but she was the smartest person I've ever known. She died a few years later. I think she knew she wouldn't be here when it all went down. Now, I think about that moment and this moment and I can't help but feel this is it... How far all of this tension will go is a mystery. No one knows the future. But I keep thinking about the quote from Lord of the Rings when Frodo wishes he didn't have the responsibility of his task and Gandalf responds: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." The problem is, I don't know what to do. I'm just witnessing all of the horror and planning for a future that may not exist. I wish I had a quest, a One Ring to throw into the fires of Mount Doom, something actionable and consequential. But maybe most of us don’t get quests like that. Maybe we get ordinary days in extraordinary times. Maybe the task is smaller and harder: to stay awake, to diffuse despair, to take care of the people in front of us and try, in whatever small ways we can, to leave the world a little less cruel. 260312 what's it to you? who go blather from