guidetoexisting

[guidetoexisting]

Don't buy clothes carelessly.

Ideally, I'd love to buy clothes that haven't hurt the world. The people who made the clothes were treated with respect, worked in nice conditions and were paid a fair wage for their work. The materials are sustainably sourced.

But also, I don't want to buy clothes that I don't feel like wearing and they end up in a landfill somewhere. Even if they were sustainably produced, they can hurt the world.

So I'll try to buy clothes that make me happy and fit me well - ones that I'll wear for years/decades to come. And buy them from people who care about the welfare of the world and strive to make a positive impact.

[guidetoexisting]

First words

After 18 months of somewhat debilitating depression, anxiety and identity/existential crises, I am trying to find my way back.

The anxiety is interesting. I try to decide what kind of fish to buy for my son and me. Is the fish full of dangerous levels of mercury that will hurt my son? Was the fish born and raised in a dirty fish farm where it spent its sad little life breathing in waste and disease? Was the fish happy?

Every sight of single-use plastic hurts my heart. That polyethylene bag will probably strangle a sea turtle one day. That polyprop straw will get impaled in a dolphins nose. And all the rest will get eaten by a beautiful humpback whale who will die from all the toxic plastic in its belly.

I can’t stop thinking about Uvalde. They’re literally murdering our babies. How do we keep letting this happen?

What will this world look like when my baby is an adult?

In order to be a good dad, I need to figure out how to live a good life. How to help the people I love and even the ones I don’t. How to make decisions I can live with, because I know I’m making the best decisions I can and thinking about the wider global community, the well-being of people, animals and the planet.

My goal is to find some guiding principles to live by and derive specific actions I can take to live better.