warning: may cause clipping

The Overton window is outside the bounds of the Overton window. It's a rhetorical device masquerading as political theory. It attempts to put bounds around the acceptability of political discourse. You can try to move or stretch the window if you don't like where it is, or try to figure out where it is and meekly stay within it. If you're in politics, you'd like to control it, keep your opponents within it, and move it in your direction.

The idea and expression of where the Overton window is seems to sharply depart from what Actual People (tm) think and say about the issues. As a box, it's far too small to be useful.

Let's deprecate it and move on to more fluid ways of thinking about public discourse.

swinging your fist

You don't have the right to:

• Take another person's life.
• Shoot a human being.
• Hurt anyone.
• Assault someone.
• Coerce anyone.
• Touch another person without their permission.
• Harass anyone.
• Bully another person.
• Threaten a human being with bodily harm.
• Interfere with someone else's bodily integrity or self-determination.

If you do any of these things, you are not exercising your rights. You are violating the rights of another human being.

alarm buzzer

alarm buzzer
finally you can
go back to sleep

how parenting is like management

You're responsible for everyone and everything.

You know that one person can't do it all herself, so you form support networks and delegate responsibilities to the kids.

You know that a well-organized, well-cared-for crew is both more pleasant and more effective, so you plan ahead to keep things running smoothly.

You're a master of logistics. You can organize a tricky release schedule or a 3-week camping trip for 10. You have a clear sense of the effort required to pull off a venture, and you can scale preparations to both the task and resources available.

You're flexible and think quickly on your feet. Life tosses you a lot of curve balls, and you have the grace and the experience to hit the sweet spot when it does.

You've honed your set of priorities so that you spend your energy on tasks that are worth the effort. You have a good sense of when an  emergent issue needs immediate attention and when it will distract and dissipate energy from more important goals. 

You remain calm and centered even in difficult circumstances.

You know that people aren't difficult on purpose just to annoy you. They are difficult because they need something they're not getting. You have the understanding to cut through the crap to get to the essential issue and the tact to solve the problem so that people feel good about the solution.

was that so hard?

dated 20 July 2017, 2 weeks after breaking that cuboid bone

I'm sitting in the ice asana, with my broken foot semi-propped on two pillows and the other leg arching around the edge of the pillows.

It's a posture that has become second nature in the past two days. Since my misadventure with the garden step, I've spent a lot of time in this chair, ice-pack-wrapped foot hoisted high. 

It's ridiculous, and I often think that I should just take up my bed and walk. My left foot soon clues me in that I can't just walk away from this problem. One minute, I was an ordinary able-bodied human, and the next I was splayed on the concrete with a broken foot.

"It's not bad," the doctor told me when he'd seen the x-rays, "just a bad sprain and an avulsion fracture."

I believed him. Not bad meant that it didn't need surgery or to be casted. A boot and crutches for 6-8 weeks would do the trick.

Yeah, but, not able to walk or carry much of anything for a couple months? The past few days have stretched into eons. So many things I do require two good feet. I never knew how many before I had a foot that couldn't bear weight at all.

Every small task is a challenge requiring careful planning. There's something strangely good about this; it focuses the attention on the present moment.

I was not doing a good job of focusing on the moment or on my body, and so I broke my foot. The broken foot forces me to focus on my body and its every move. A spiritual lesson delivered from foot to brain.

My foot is my teacher. It teaches about balance and vulnerability, synergy and interdependence. It teaches me to be graceful about my awkwardness and sanguine about my instability. It teaches me that ramps are long and crutches wide. It teaches me how to pull my pants up while balancing on my right foot. It teaches me how to ask for and accept help.

healing view

dated 15 September 2018, 2.5 months after breaking the cuboid bone in my left foot

My foot, which seemed to have been improving, has lagged significantly the past two days. It's been grousing more and capable of less.

In body meditation today, my body informed me that it is fighting a war on two fronts right now. I'm fighting a cold as well as healing my foot. My body is diverting energy from my foot to deal with the virus. 

In healing my foot, there seems to be a regular cycle of pushing it a little, having it seem fine, and then having to scale back for a few days to give the body a chance to do a little remodeling. It feels like healing the foot depends on a little regular motion and weight-bearing to sculpt off the rough bits and show where the foot needs to  bend and bear weight. Take the foot out for a test drive and then tinker with it for a few days.

The last push was hard (full-on walking, on two feet with no crutches for half and then two-thirds my waking hours. This put significant wear and tear on my foot. The subsequent repair-and-revision phase will take a few days.