A dripping dread

I’ve been working on the next part in my series on the venture capital infused authoritarian fever dreams of  JD Vance and the rest of the Coalition of the Creepy. I wanted to figure out if I could push past their hype and understand what the COTC (Coalition of the Creepy) actually wants to accomplish. I wanted to understood the likelihood of them accomplishing it.

You can read the first part here! And the second part here!

The panic grew as I researched. Now that the writing is done, I just kind of feel a dripping dread. It’s actually worse than I thought. And nothing is ever worse than I thought!

I’m copy editing the piece right now, but I keep closing out the document. In fact, I am writing this very newsletter after the latest close out! Because I just keep thinking -

Maybe don’t publish this! It just exposes me to people who can hurt me! Maybe just write something else! Anything else! There’s so much to write about! Happier things! Equally true things! Less risky things! All of creation can be written about and I just keep writing about the machinations of dominion-hungry men! 

WHY?! What do I think the writing will do, for me as a writer, for you as a reader?

And I think I can answer that question if I talk about mice and light for just a minute? If you don’t mind?

Light and then mice.

We call the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans can see ‘visible light.’ The cones in the corner of our eyes detect electromagnetic wavelengths between about 400 and 700 nanometers. Our brains and cones process that light and turn it into color. 

Now, mice can see some of the visible light we see - especially wavelengths that produce the color green. But they can also see ultraviolet light - electromagnetic wavelengths between 10 and 400 nanometers. They can see the colors beyond violet. 

A mouse’s upper visual fields are especially attuned to detecting UV light. So the mouse sky is not blue. A mouse's sky is a color I cannot see, a violet beyond violet. It is much more difficult for a winged predator to go unnoticed in a UV-lit sky. The light mice can see illuminates a world I cannot see, one full of colors associated with (mouse) meaning and potentiality I can’t fathom. 

UV light illuminates a universe we cannot see too. We know this because we’ve learned the edge of visible light isn’t the end of light, it’s a boundary between the light we can see and the light we cannot. 

When we use telescopes to capture images of galaxies in visible light, we can see the yellow-red light of old stars. By those lights, we live in a universe that was formed.

But when we look at those same galaxies with telescopes that capture ultraviolet light, we see huge clouds of gas brimming with the light of new stars. By those lights, we live in a universe that is still forming. 

Of course, that light took a long time to get to our telescopes. And so by the time we see the news stars, they are older. And by the time we see the old stars, they might be gone. By that light, we live in a universe that is collapsing.

And of course, it’s all three at once. (And more, because there is light we cannot see that we REALLY cannot see - if that makes sense.)

Back to the mice.

There’s a mischief of mice in my garden. I don’t see them very often. I know when they are foraging because I can see stems and flowerheads sway one after another as a mouse moves across the garden. I like to watch small things work. Maybe because I am a small thing at work. 

When I deadhead the coneflowers, I empty seeds from the cones and spread them out in other parts of my yard. But I always make sure to leave a few seeded flower heads in a pile along the favored mouse path. The next morning, I sit on the porch and write - waiting to see the flowers move. 

On the best days, the last stem sways in the spot right next to the pile of flowerheads I know then a little mouse has found my offeringe. When I am very lucky, I get to see a mouse dart back into it’s corner of the garden, it's mouth full of flower.

And like, I feel compelled to to write about these damn mice! I want to EB White the shit out of every single mouse moment. This writing would reveal nothing new! It would change nothing about mice-human relations!

But writing about those mice helps me observe - right there out of the corner of my eye! - the border of my own reality. It helps me remember there are other worlds, even in my garden. The sky is only blue because I cannot see ultraviolet.

And I guess I write about the machinations of men for the same reason I want to write about mice. I am trying to demonstrate the boundaries of a world.

When we describe an order of power - in writing, on a group chat, over dinner - we are observing its limits. We are helping each other see the boundaries of a world lit by hierarchical authority. It is so small! More border than world! And when we've marked every boundary, we can see where their world ends.

So I am going to send you this newsletter. And then I am going to finish copyediting the next one. And when I send it to you, we are going describe the smallness in their claims of authority. We are going to observe the limits of their vision. We are going to turn to the work of marking the spot where their world ends.

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