i took a 45-minute uber ride home from the airport last night after a brutal, three-day business trip.
i was completely emotionally and physically drained, and my social battery was at absolute zero.
when i got into the car, the driver.. an older guy named kabir.. didn't say the usual "how was your flight?" or turn on the radio.
instead, he just handed me a small, laminated piece of paper attached to the back of his headrest.
it was a literal "ride menu."
it said:
1. *the silent ride* (total quiet, no pressure to talk).
2. *the therapist ride* (if you need to vent about your day, i am listening).
3. *the tourist ride* (i will tell you cool facts about the city).
4. *the radio ride* (we just listen to old jazz and coast).
i smiled, pointed to number 1, and whispered, "silent ride, please. thank you."
he gave me a warm nod in the rearview mirror, adjusted the AC, and drove the entire 45 minutes in absolute, beautiful silence.
it was the most peaceful, therapeutic boundary i’ve experienced all year. i felt my entire nervous system finally reset.
when he dropped me off, i gave him a massive tip and told him, "that menu is a genius business idea. you must get amazing reviews."
He looked back at me and said, "i didn't make the menu to get better tips, dear.
my daughter has severe social anxiety, and she told me that the hardest part of her day is navigating small talk with strangers when her brain is tired.
she told me it feels like running a marathon.
i made the card so that anyone who gets into my car can feel completely safe dropping the mask for a little while."
i walked into my apartment and just sat on my suitcase.
we live in a world that is constantly screaming at us to perform, to network, to be "on," and to over-communicate.
but sometimes, the deepest form of love and respect you can show another human being is just creating a small, safe pocket of silence for them to rest in.
pay attention to the people who give you permission to be quiet. they are rare.
@DarcyAmaroo we are the third or fourth largest supplier of gas world-wide and with the current shortages we SHOULD be raking it in right now... but instead it is the multinationals who get it for almost free from our benighted government.
Copied from a friend’s page:
A serious and deeply shocking UN report, jointly prepared by five prominent international organizations (intergovernmental organizations) in cooperation with three Israeli NGOs, is facing pressure, particularly from the US and the West, to prevent its release. Among the most prominent points in this "prisoner report" are:
1. 112 cases of rape were documented within Israeli prisons against female prisoners from Gaza. Three of these cases involved virgins, and the rapes were gang-raped. One of these women was transferred under international supervision to a secret location and is now pregnant.
2. Israeli forces executed 87 Gazan detainees inside their prisons by shooting them directly in the head with pistols and dumped their bodies in various areas of Gaza's streets.
3. Torture in the prisons is barbaric and insane, and what is happening is more horrific than what occurred in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the secret prisons.
4. (Israel) deliberately bombed, as part of a chain of command, families and children belonging to Palestinian organizations. The occupation army approved, from the second day, a plan to exterminate the families of activists, and the target bank includes 150,000 civilians.
5. (Israel) made excessive use of mercenaries and contracted with 22 military service companies. There is an American ship that is essentially a floating morgue containing 1,327 bodies of mercenaries whose families have not yet been notified of their deaths.
6. The amount of gold and money stolen, according to secret army estimates, is approximately $370 million.
7. (70%) of the bombs dropped on Gaza were filled with depleted uranium. The soil in the Gaza Strip is heavily contaminated with uranium elements, containing 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium. Uranium consists of three isotopes: uranium-234, uranium-235, and uranium-238. The depleted uranium dropped on Gaza contains the same types of radiation as natural uranium, but in lower quantities. The radiation emitted by depleted uranium is 40% of that emitted by natural uranium. Uranium-238, which constitutes 99.8% of the depleted uranium, emits alpha particles. Its half-life in Gaza is approximately 450 years. The smoke from the depleted uranium explosions caused cancer in the lungs of everyone who inhaled it.
8. (90%) of women and children in Gaza suffer from severe psychological trauma, and medical centers in the Strip have recorded more than 5,000 cases of complete mental breakdown, mostly among women who lost their children.
9. Approximately 213 (Israeli) pilots refused to carry out airstrikes on targets containing dozens of people. One pilot testified before an Israeli organization that he refused to bomb a residential tower in Tel al-Hawa where 48 children were located, as detected by thermal imaging aircraft. However, another pilot carried out the bombing 17 minutes later, killing everyone in the building. The result was the deaths of 128 civilians.
10. The purpose of establishing a temporary port is to facilitate the mass transfer of Palestinians and their passage to Europe. Three European countries are fully complicit in an agreed-upon plan to depopulate the Gaza Strip.
11. The Zionist war cabinet approved the use of starvation as a weapon in late November.
12. Israeli intelligence agencies made over 3 million phone calls to Gaza residents, threatening to bomb homes and kill families if they did not obtain field information.
13. Two Arab countries offered South Africa very tempting financial incentives in exchange for withdrawing the case from the Supreme Court.
14. The airdropping of aid to Gaza by Western aircraft was carried out based on advice from legal advisors to avoid accusations of complicity in genocide, especially since the weapons supplied were delivered without restrictions on their use against civilians.
@franmac44@DavidShoebridge@PollyWi92611992 exactly, Labor should toss them out and get better leaders. Then they would be easily electable and have widespread support and not be scared of the ogres.
Probably a good idea to leave the Clint Eastwood impersonation behind and stop making a fool of yourself. @ChrisMinnsMP
The colony of nsw is part of a Federation now.
You are inflaming the situation not calming it.
@DaveMilbo most people think it only applies to other people not them, they will allow opression of theirfellow-citizens until it affects them, which it will sooner or later.
@ChrisLynnHedges yes he spent the whole interview trying to trip you up. Something that the ABC's "Media Watch" might report on one of Sky News's lackeys doing with a broader Aussie accent. The standard of journalism just dropped a few more notches. He just proved your point with his hectoring.
@CottrillJi34284@AusHoodLaw nonsense, unless you have real evidence..
this Sovereign Citizen bullshit should be stamped out. Deport them all if they don't want to be part of this society. But who would want them?