If you care to check the depths of my activity on this blockchain, you'll notice this isn't the first time I posted the below post on loss and love. I had to delete it quick smart because it was muted in the community I posted it in - The Flame, which, if you've been following the drama, was started by Raymond who started BRO coin. It was my bad, really - I didn't read the community rules which said the group was invite only. I was responding to a post @holoz0r wrote in said community, and perhaps was over excited.

I get that communities have rules, but this one made me squeamish. There was some wierd religious icongraphy going on and it felt - cultish. Sure, it might have been a little creative hyperbole - every community has a little theme going on, right? But I baulked at it mainly because an 'invite only', exclusive community didn't sit right with me. For me, Hive is about inclusivity, not secret clubs and off chain Discord groups you may or not be allowed into.

Part of the reason I've stayed on Hive so long is that I get to meet all kinds of people, from all walks of life. Some I understand, some I don't. Some I get along with, some make me scroll on past and roll my eyes. But I love how we get the opportunity to expand our personal horizons here. We're challenged by difference and diversity. I have learnt an awful lot from people who live very different lives from me. Everyone has some essential awesomeness that should be embraced and valued.

ON the contrary, exclusivity is destructive in online communities. Little walls, however subtle, cuts off the source of what makes Hive alive. It shrinks conversations and reinforces echo chambers, and stops people coming together in interesting ways. It denies new voices who might bring freshness, that might challenge the way we do things.

It's easy to connect with people like us, but it's the ones who don't that helps us grow. Inclusivity doesn't mean that we agree with everyone but that we make room for difference, for the people who make us uncomfortable. When we start gatekeeping who enters communities, things stagnate.

So yeah, I like the friction, the variety, the ability to see the world through many eyes. Hive is at it's best when it's NOT made up of closed clubs.

Of course, The Flame has proved itself to be - well, kinda wierd, and Raymond's exit will be going down in Hive history, sadly. Maybe some kind of intuition told me to steer clear. But I'm pretty sure it was more about my values. Exclusivity sucks.

So here's the muted post, again. I felt kinda sad it was muted and never really saw the light of day. I'd emotionally invested in it, like I do a lot of my writing, so it meant a lot to me that people read it.

Schrodinger's Gains

To love puppies and fathers hurts. To love cats and hamsters and mothers and budgerigars and grandfathers, to love a child, to love a best friend, a wife, a lover. To commit to love is to commit to loss. There's no other way around it.

The great @holoz0r, may his name ever be spelt correctly, wrote this week of Schrodinger's loss - that in the 'cold, indifferent universe, no life is special', but we are foolish creatures that tell 'tell ourselves that we can fight back against the inevitable. That things will stay just the way they've always been.' even though we know things will die. We fall in love with cats and dogs and people even though we know they are Schrodinger's pets, both alive and dead at the same time.

Arguably, we don't really know this. Not the first time we lose, and sometimes not even the second or the third or the tenth. We keep coming back for more. And then one day we're looking at old photos and thinking, isn't it funny how time passes? Do you remember that dog?

That father?

The father that talked me into a puppy, because he loved dogs. I didn't have a choice. I wasn't thinking about permanency - either my own ability to provide security to a pet or the fact that all pets must die.

The puppy in the photograph is Port. She was a little border collie cross who was a little nut case. Incredibly loyal, to me, and wouldn't listen to anyone else. I used to leave her (accidentally) at the beach and she'd be there hours later waiting for me to come in, until she cottoned onto that and would just run home and wait on the front door step of the house I was at last. Then she realised there was only one house that I would always go back to at some point, which was my parents, so instead she'd go back there.

Then I started travelling, and Dad, in his desire to teach me responsibility, would not look after the dog. No one would - she was my little nutcase, and I loved her, but no one else would take her on. My Nana drove me to the pound. I know no one took her, or she would have turned up on my Dad's doorstep. To this day it's the one regrettable act of my life. I still remember her looking back at me. It's a confession I feel shame and sadness over.

But then, she'd be long gone now.

The thing is, you take these incredible risks with animals and people. You love them so fucking hard and whether you truly embrace this idea or not, it is because they are not forever.

When I found out that my father was not immortal, it was the singular most awful thing I've ever learnt in my life. Schrodinger's box sucked. I remember, when he died, reprimanding myself for loving him so much. If I hadn't, it wouldn't have hurt so badly.

But then the love-in-the-box is more bountiful and more beautiful and more rewarding than the death-in-the-box, no? It fills the room. Fills the universe. Powers our hearts. Teaches us. Makes us blessed.

So we keep opening the box, despite what we know might - is - in it. We almost break at loss, but then we just turn to love again. Fools indeed.

With Love,

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