Can We… Not?
Saying no is just so very now.
Hi friends!
This week has been another one for the books — which the energy we’ve been experiencing has burned, unfortunately. I started a new job and have been contending with a “when it rains it pours” freelance moment and though we do love a livelihood, finessing it all just about took me out by Tuesday afternoon. I briefly considered copy/pasting a springtime minestrone recipe for today’s dispatch from the edge, but I caught my second wind. So here we are, in a stunning turn of events we have made it, and towards the weekend we go.
Thankfully, this isn’t a deranged women’s magazine and our editor-in-chief (me) doesn’t believe in having nor doing it all. While I do love to hustle up some action, my spirit these days is more aligned with a lizard sunning herself on a rock than the little rodent that could. Sometimes I feel nostalgic for the days when I had boundless energy and ambition. That version of me was so cute and knew not of Zoom, but I also burnt myself out constantly, accepted every opportunity that came my way, and approached work and life with a zeal that would now put me in a grave. With age comes experience, a few grey hairs, acid reflux after 1-2 wines, and the wisdom of knowing how much you can handle.
When the vibes continue to deteriorate so steadily, we must learn to adapt. If you’re still holding on to ways of life that no longer feel right when existential threats are having such a moment, consider this your permission slip to weaponize therapy speak as you set boundaries to your heart’s content and postpone every activity possible. Saying no is just so very now.
Once you start looking you will find endless opportunities to say no. Is 8pm too early to go to bed? No, enjoy! Is spending $93 on dinner normal? No, are you OK? Should we all start taking Ozempic? No, we all look great.
Biggest no of the week goes to AI pioneer and news cycle icon Dr. Geoffrey Hinton who quit his job at Google so he could warn us freely about how his invention is set to destroy humanity. Geoffrey, no. We didn’t need to deal with that right now. Geoffrey, our eyes are so bleary we just had to double check the spelling of “awesome” in an email because it looked off for some reason. I think you gave Jake Tapper a new forehead wrinkle, Geoffrey, and now I have to add an entire new chapter to the manifesto I’m working on, longhand, in my garage.
The WGA gave us the good kind of big no energy (BNE) when they went on strike this past Tuesday. They got the most press for obvious Hollywood reasons but were preceded by British doctors and nurses, German transportation workers, Nigerian airport workers, and Canadian government workers who have also all gone on strike with their BNE in just the past few weeks. If you work creating content of any kind, you should be paying attention to the safeguards the WGA is asking for around AI because I promise you that companies would way rather not employ messy, expensive creative humans when generative AI will get them 80% there. Another Geoffrey-driven crime to add to the list!
I stand in solidarity with all the unions asking for fair wages and working conditions, but I’m ready to take it one step further, say no to the concept of work altogether, and create a nice Geoffrey-invention-free compound with other likeminded folks looking to build a utopian society — I hear that always ends well.
If we won’t gatekeep our own sanity by saying no, who will? May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I’d like to go all 31 days without having a menty b so one thing I shan’t be saying no to is Klonopin.
Less Lessons More Blessin’s™️
Liz