Y'all, I know you want to live in a world where diseases don't exist, where you can go about your day without a care in the world.

But today is not that day. That world is not this reality.

I know you wish to live in ignorance of the thousands who die from disease (Covid in particular), the thousands more who end up permanently disabled, and the thousands that are now immuno-compromised.

But today is not that day. That world is not this reality.

I know you wish to pretend the increasing genocides, such as Gaza, Sudan, Congo, and others, aren't happening, so you can eat happily without worrying your the hairs on your head. Despite the fact that tens of thousands are dying, where aid is being blocked, where colonizer states are lying through their teeth and not even trying to hide it. I get that you wish to pretend the world is pretty and nothing is going on that will bother the hairs on your head.

But today is not that day. That world is not this reality.

I know you wish to chant to yourself that Climate Change isn't real and doesn't effect you. That the world isn't turning more hostile to life, so that you can continue to wander through your days without a care. Except, the weather turns more and more violent, where the permafrost melts and releases feedback gases, where the rivers start to run orange and red, where the sea levels rise, where millions are displaced, where hundreds of thousands are dying, where forest fires leave the sky a permanent orange or grey.

But today is not that day. That world is not this reality.

Ignoring reality doesn't make it go away. Pretending everything is just fine doesn't erase the horrors currently happening. Doing nothing doesn't help anyone, let alone you. This apathy is hurting all of us, so instead of falling prey to this falsehood, wake up.

Wake up and listen to those of us who fight for a better and more just present and future.

What does help? How do you rise up and avoid apathy and despair?

By talking with each other. By recognizing the horrors. By acknowledging the very real grief, by working through that grief with one another.

By supporting one another, by loving one another.

By rising up to stop the horrors through marching, political actions, writing campaigns, and other actions.

By pushing for more sustainable ways of being and fighting to get the policies passed and followed-through.

By demanding cease-fires and demanding aid to those in need.

By helping those who the pandemic has isolated and left to die -- getting them food, healthcare, support, and housing.

By building community gardens and sharing food with one another.

By holding forums for your community and talking through the needs of your community. By talking through solutions and finding an egalitarian way to implement them.

By building community with one another.

By building a community that fights fiercely to leave no one behind. To fight for a present and future where everyone has access to food, clean water, housing, healthcare, in-person and virtual support, and Internet/electricity. Where no one has to fear the bombs of another, where no one has to fear for their lives.

This is all possible. We can achieve such a just present and future.

But it requires work.

So will you put aside your yearning for a falsehood? Put aside your demand to return to a past that never really existed?

To instead, take my hand and fight with me for a present and future where we all are able to thrive and exist as we are without fear?

Because today is that day. Today is that day to fight for that reality.

Thanks for reading.

I think of the mass death we are seeing. I think of the collective grief, and how grief is love made manifest. I think of how some of us are trapped in various stages of grief, paralyzed with pain and grief and fear, where they are unable to move forward, because how can we? I think of hope and how hard it can be to choose hope in this dark time.

From Covid, the lower estimates put the dead at 25 million globally, but other studies that examine deaths often omitted from official counts for bogus reasons, puts that dead much, much higher. At 75 million.

Then there's the 65 to 105 million disabled by LongCovid, many with little to no resources, who - like myself - often fall through the cracks in the broken care systems.

Then there's the billions who have died due to the growing planetary crisis due to corporations and political actors refusal to give up oil so humanity and the diversity of life can have a chance at surviving.

Then there's the genocides happening as fascist governments turn on citizens and neighboring countries and the as-yet-unrecognized-by-Western-powers-states.

How do we grieve all this?

Some fall into denialism, where they refuse to acknowledge the deaths. Where they try to live in this alternate reality where they no longer have to face the reality.

And yet, what does that denialism do?

It only upholds the mass death. It falls into the culture of death, allowing the horrors to continue.

Denying reality cannot stop the mass death and disablement.

Only accepting that this is our reality, acknowledging the massive collective grief that saturates us, and stepping up and saying:

"Our collective grief is real and valid. Our pain is real and valid. We are facing multiple planetary and communities crises, but I choose hope. I choose to act. I choose to build up my community, to engage in safety measures to save more lives, to fight to dismantle this culture of death, and to speak the truth no matter what."

Because, even in this culture of death, our power is not gone. Capitalist colonialist cishet white supremacy may shove down our throats that we are useless, that we are only cogs in its machine, that we have no power.

And yet, that is false.

We do have power. We see this power in the unions that fought for better pay, benefits, and community needs.

We see this in the disasters that hit our communities, when we band together and help our neighbors, where we help each other rebuild our homes.

We see this every time we wear an N95 Mask or better to protect each other. Where we fight for masks in healthcare to lower the incident rate of hospital-induced diseases. Where we fight to normalize pandemic mitigations to better prepare our present and future.

We see this every time a mutual aid initiative starts up and continues forward, where food and money and clean water is shared among one another. Where we care for our community members, where we do our best to reach out to those who are isolated and often left behind, and where we make sure no one is left behind.

Humans have a great capacity for love and kindness. We are a social species and cannot survive for long in extreme isolation.

We have great power together. When we collectively gather and fight for our right to exist and have a future and a habitable planet? That power within each of us is woven into a mighty whole that has the potential to tear down the culture of death, and in its place rebuild it as a culture of life, of hope, of justice, of equity and harmony.

This is what we must remember.

We must allow ourselves to grieve all the mass death and losses we have endured, but we must not get trapped there. We must act upon that grief.

Because what is grief if not love realized?

To honor the memories of all our dead, we must act. We must act together as a collective whole.