This is a piece I wrote in May 2020.

I have been quiet on here because it's been loud everywhere. But I want to share this with you now, as imperfect as it is, less a verbalisation and more a vocalisation. 

NASA is a messy bitch who lives for drama. Significant discovery about the moon? Don't announce it straight away, oh, no. Announce that there's an announcement coming. The world we live in is in such a state that when NASA finally broke the news that the moon has water on its sunlit surface, the collective response was, "Is that it?" That's right, the fact that the moon has resources that could potentially support life elicited little more than a, "Meh."

And that was my reaction. Don't know what I expected the news to be or how I'd feel about it. But I kept on scrolling. I used to look up at the stars to feel better. To surrender to that ancient, visceral understanding. You know the one. Where every bit of your body goes shaky as you focus on your reliance on this vast cosmic Rube Goldberg machine for your very existence while facing its total indifference to you and everyone and everything you love. To remind yourself concretely that you are not the centre of the universe. Last night, I looked up at the Hunter's moon, staggered by its crisp fullness, and then got annoyed because I couldn't take a good photo of it. My iPhone X with more power than the computers that sent astronauts there in the first place. Sake. Apparently it was blue.

It reminded me of one of the most significant discoveries NASA made. It was only last year. Evidence of a parallel universe where time runs backwards. I won't butcher the ramifications of what this means, my quantum hypothesising is better three pints deep and I'm trying to drink less, that's why I've hyperlinked the article for you. But for all the fear and wonder in that article, this is what stayed with me. Ibrahim Safa, who worked on the experiment, said, "We're left with the most exciting or most boring possibilities." 

I am finding it hard to look forwards. To really visualise the future. Not in a depression way. In a 404 not found kind of way. So I keep looking in the other direction. I don't want to be consumed by the past, especially not my own, but we're not learning from it. My own hyper-attention won't be much of a contribution but I'm not sure what else I can do. That's the trickiest part of recovery. To let go of the compulsive actions and behaviours. Because however damaging they may be, however skewed the underlying belief, however seemingly pointless the entire endeavour, it's still doing something.  

I wasn't a fan of The Martian when I saw it in the cinema. One of those sci-fi films that falls to the contemporary trap of publicising their scientific authenticity above the quality of the story, well... What struck me more than any of the effects or earnest acting was nothing to do with the film. No, it was this hero casually making these calculations to drum up a rough bill for how much America has spent rescuing Matt Damon over the years. $900 billion is the estimate. For context, this model for fixing the climate crisis could cost around a cool $300 billion. Thanks to this ingenious thought experiment, Matt Damon has become synonymous with failing upwards to me. Maintaining his status as a competent hero when it's actually the effort and skill of swathes of people in lower ranks who get you out of scrapes. Outside of his roles, I mean, his ideas of how to rescue the film industry in regards to diversity leave a lot to be desired. 

So. The way time is flowing.

"We're left with the most exciting or most boring possibilities."

Now more than ever, I think of this particular scene in The Martian. That film, which is so scientifically sound, starring Matt Damon in sore need of rescuing, nurturing the potatoes he's grown, fertilised by his own shit, grown on barren vermilion land, the wind howling by his ear, the thin membrane of the plastic tent torn and flapping, the only thing protecting him from the malignant atmosphere, and he's screaming. Staggered, nothing substantial. He is in space after all, who will hear him? But screaming all the same.

Just to let it out enough to keep going.