Sometimes stepping away from current events is the healthiest offering we can make to people around us, to ourselves, and to the world. We create the necessary—& sacred—space to listen for what is needed or helpful or playful or curious or possible. So many declarative, violent and frantic statements crossing our minds at high speeds, not to mention images, can rapidly spiral a person into zombieland. But how and when do we step back into the flow of the world’s exigencies to rejoin our human and greater-than-human communities, for our own growth as much as in service to others?

Two books have been on my TBR list since before they were published, and reading them back to back recently I was surprised at the deep engagement both have with today’s technologies and quandaries. Richard Powers’ Playground is well covered by the U.S. publicity machine, so this post will cover U.K. writer Manda Scott’s Any Human Power. Given her previous stories, the compulsive reading of this 500-pager is no surprise. She shows us the existential urgency of our current overlapping crises to highlight how today’s technologies can be harnessed to scale up the systemic changes needed to explore ways beyond. With a family—and widely extended chosen family—of people with different skills and perspectives, she emphasizes the need for human relationship changes and skillfulness as much as for technological capacity.

My posts and recommendations here stay away from violence, but like staying away from the news, knowing why we do things keeps us from solidifying our behavior in no-longer-useful ways. The focus began as intent to attract interest rather than to grab attention with violence. Scott's opening scene subtly addresses our social programming and fears around individual life-and-death storylines. But avoiding violence, especially systemic violence, can leave stories adrift in Pollyanna disconnection. Though Scott doesn’t preach within the story, in the concluding author’s note she gives her take on the title: “Any human power can by human agency be changed.” This novel takes full advantage of her long work with the Accidental Gods podcast, interviewing international changemakers, to share a route map with many ways to move forward right now into a thriving future. You are invited to follow your passions toward a purpose that reciprocates the joy of living with Life itself by checking out her updating resource list at this link:  https://mandascott.co.uk/any-human-power-resources/